How a Minor Change Will Be a Very Big Deal for Dolphins Rookie Michael Taaffe

It's right there in small type on the last of seven pages on the NFL transactions wire Thursday, details that probably won't matter much to the average NFL fan.

For Miami Dolphins rookie safety, going from number 31 to number 16 heading into Week 1 of the regular season is a very big deal.

Taaffe was one of four Dolphins players who changed numbers Thursday, with Kevin Coleman Jr. now 21 after being 83 in camp; tackle Caedan Wallace now 77 after being 75; and rookie tight end Seydou Traore now number 89 after being 49 in training camp.

But there's probably not a story as significant as what 31 means to Taaffe.

WHY 16 MEANS SO MUCH TO MICHAEL TAAFFE

In case you haven't heard the story yet, Taaffe wears the number 16 as a tribute to former Jackson Coker, who died in a car accident in 2021.

Taaffe first wore 36 at the University of Texas before making the request to switch to 16, and he told the story in an interview with 3andlonghorn.

"I was on JVB team my sophomore year, and I'd never been placed on a B team, and I was killed," Taaffe said. "I'd always want to go to the NFL. I'd always want to play college football. So I was going to give it up. I talked with my youth leader, and we decided to stay. I was like, I'm still having fun, so I'll just see what it is. And Jackson Coker now was one of my best friends, but at the time we kind of just knew each other, and I always see him working extra work after practice every single day. And he came up to me one time. He was like, 'I can see you're hungry for it. If you want it, come with me. Follow me. Everything that you do, we're gonna do it together, and we're gonna outwork everybody.'

"And so it was me and him. And then there was another guy, Ryan Lindley. He just graduated from Yale, but us three every single morning before and after practice, and so I looked up to both of those guys because they showed me what it meant to work. They really propelled me to be who I am now today. And so Jackson was going to go play football at Columbia. Beast receiver, beast running back, was driving at 5 a.m. to his workout over in Westlake, and one-car accident, just swerved off the road early in the morning, died right on impact.

"I'd never really gone through anything like that, and so when I heard it, I was devastated, crushed. His faith was so important to him. I didn't feel lost, like I didn't feel like he was away from me. I felt like he was still with me, and that was faith telling me right there that he is still with me. Yeah. So from then on out, I tried to do everything that Jackson would do. You know, hold the door for every single lady, pick up every single trash that you see in the locker room, that you see in the cafeteria. He wore number 16. I talked to Coach Sark (Steve Sarkisian), and I was like, I want to do this for him. I know that when I step on the field, I'm wearing 16, nobody's going to tell me no. He meant so much to me and everybody that he touched, it meant the world to them. So it feels so good to wear 16."

When the Dolphins opened training camp, it was rookie quarterback Mark Gronowski who wore 16, but it became available after Gronowski was released from the practice squad this week.

While he may not have had Coker's number during training camp, he still did things the right way wearing number 31, which is what put him in a position to contend for a starting safety job as a rookie.

Why Taaffe didn't get 16 from the start is unclear, particularly since Gronowski wore 11 in college and therefore didn't have any connection with 16, but it's not important right now.

Taaffe got the number he wanted all along.

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