Breaking Down the Jonah Dilemma

How the Miami Dolphins are dealing with struggling rookie guard Jonah Savaiinaea

Miami Dolphins rookie guard Jonah Savaiinaea | Alain Poupart - Miami Dolphins On SI

The plan all along for the Miami Dolphins this season, as set out in late August by GM Chris Grier, was to rely on some of their younger players, even more specifically, some of their rookies.

It's a plan that made sense in light of the organizational switch away from stockpiling high-priced veterans, but it's a plan that had some risk.

And that risk was that some of these rookies wouldn't be quite ready to handle a prominent role, and there's probably no bigger poster child for that problem than guard Jonah Savaiinaea.

Nobody needs the Pro Football Focus grades to see Savaiinaea has struggled through the first six games of his NFL career, though we'll mention he's ranked 79th among the 79 guards they have graded. So, yeah, last.

It seems not a game goes by when Savaiinaea isn't beaten basically right off the snap for either a sack or immediate pressure on Tua Tagovailoa, and there have been missed blocks or assignments in the run game as well.

And we have reached the point, quite frankly, where it's fair to debate whether Savaiinaea's long-term development is coming at too big a cost in terms of the present needs of an already suspect offensive line.

So it was that head coach Mike McDaniel was asked before practice Wednesday whether the thought had been given to making Savaiinaea's left guard spot an open competition a month and a half into the regular season.

"I'm sure you guys noticed the play that he would want back," McDaniel explained. "Outside of that, I think he had probably his best technique game. Again, it's very fluid. And you're the NFL, and teams are made up of a coach-player relationship that there needs to be a purpose for the coach to exist, and that's to improve the player. And players by nature of the experience or the relationship with the coach, are challenged to improve, and that process needs to occur, or you evaluate other options. That's just the nature of all of it. So it is a primary importance that you know our best coaching is done through improvement of failure, and that the idea isn't black and white where high five, result good, no eye contact, result bad type stuff. This is where we're working together to achieve the best result, and that takes investment and mutual ownership."

THE DILEMMA WITH JONAH

OK, there's a lot to unpack in McDaniel's response, but also nothing to unpack.

Basically, what the Dolphins want is for Savaiinaea to raise his level of play — and like yesterday.

But how realistic is that?

And the one issue McDaniel didn't address is the cost-benefit aspect of making Savaiinaea fight to keep his job or be benched.

The biggest risk is crushing Savaiinaea's confidence by benching him, and that's absolutely a risk when it comes to a rookie who has yet to experience any success at the NFL level.

The Dolphins made a big investment in Savaiinaea in the 2025 NFL draft, not only in drafting him 38th overall but in doing so after surrendering draft capital to make sure another team wouldn't get him first.

Another issue to consider is whether the Dolphins have better options on the active roster.

Let's remember that Cole Strange is starting at right guard these days after Kion Smith was benched and replaced during the Buffalo game by veteran Daniel Brunskill.

And judging by the PFF grades, it's not like Smith, who started the first three games, or Strange have been tearing it up, either, with Smith ranked 73rd among those 79 guards and Strange ranked 77th. Brunskill didn't play enough snaps to get a grade, but he did allow an immediate pressure on the play that resulted in a late interception when the Dolphins were driving for a potential game-tying touchdown at Buffalo in Week 3.

So even after James Daniels returns from IR — whenever that will be — it's not like the Dolphins have a lot of clearly better options than Savaiinaea at the moment.

But the Dolphins, if they're not already doing it, should be spending extra time with him to help him develop because if he continues to struggle and have those whiffs that everyone can see, that could wind up becoming as damaging to his confidence as being benched.

And the Dolphins can't have that. Even if it doesn't happen as quickly as anybody would like, the Dolphins can't afford to have Savaiinaea become a draft miss. They just can't.

So, as McDaniel said, the Dolphins need to do whatever is necessary to "improve the player."