Diving Into the Achane Situation After He Misses Opening of Offseason Program

The Miami Dolphins were back in the building at the Baptist Health Training Complex on Tuesday when they began the first phase of their offseason program, but there was one notable although not totally surprising absence, that of running back De'Von Achane.

The 2025 team MVP wants a contract extension, so him missing the first day of the offseason program wasn't a big deal considering the nine-week program is voluntary — except for the mandatory minicamp from June 2-4.

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New head coach Jeff Hafley was asked about Achane’s contract situation in his media session.

“I think those are talks for another time in between Achane and Sully those guys," Hafley said. “So I'm not going to dive into those thoughts right now. Honestly, that's part of the business. It's part of what every team goes through in those situations and they'll work it out.”

While the program is voluntary, every coach will tell you that they want as many players in the building as possible. That’s doubly true for someone like Hafley who is a new head coach looking to establish and implement his culture.

Publicly, the Dolphins have stated they want to keep Achane both now and for the foreseeable future. New GM Jon-Eric Sullivan was adamant when he was asked about any potential trade possibility involving the Dolphins’ star back.

“There is zero effort on my end to move Achane,” Sullivan said at the NFL Annual Meeting last week in Arizona, though he did add he would listen if another GM called.

How Good is Achane?

Achane has been a standout for the Dolphins since being drafted in the third round of the 2023 NFL Draft. Achane has run for at least 800 yards in all three of his seasons with the team, and that includes a breakout 2025 campaign that saw Achane gallop for more than 1,350 yards.

Running backs are not the commodity they used to be in the NFL, as they have consistently become devalued pieces, with teams hesitant to commit hefty salaries to a position that goes through as much wear and tear as running backs do.

The Seattle Seahawks are a recent example of this practice. Kenneth Walker was one of their best players during their playoff run in 2025, and topped that off by winning MVP honors in Super Bowl LX.

Despite that fact, the Seahawks allowed Walker to hit the open market. He weighed multiple offers before signing a 3-year deal worth up to $45 million with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Walker will certainly be one point of comparison for a new contract for Achane, while a division rival could provide another point of inflection. The division rival Buffalo Bills gave James Cook a four-year $48 million extension last August, which included $30 million in guaranteed money.

Those were contracts given in the past, but there are more on the horizon as well. Both Bijan Robinson from Atlanta and Jahmyr Gibbs from Detroit are now extension-eligible and likely to seek new deals even though the Falcons and Lions figure to exercise the fifth-year option for 2027 on each of their contract.

Dfferences In Contracts?

That is true of Achane as well, with one major difference. Achane was not a first-round pick and his contract will expire next offseason, with the only caveat being that the Dolphins could use the franchise or transition tag on him.

That’s not a practice that Jon-Eric Sullivan is used to using, as the Packers have never used the franchise tag under Brian Gutekunst, and have not done so since using the tag on Corey Williams in 2008.

It’s an uncommon practice in Sullivan’s background, because it’s a fully guaranteed salary for just one season. The price to put the franchise tag on a running back for the 2026 season was 14.2 million, according to Spotrac.

That will go up further next year with the likely extensions on the horizon for some of the aforementioned players like Robinson and Gibbs.

Therefore, that seems unlikely to be the path Sullivan would want to take. It’s an expensive route to create more tension, another lengthy holdout, and a potential distraction one year from now.

Of course that will also only make his final contract more expensive, which is not something that Sullivan is completely opposed to.

“I think (running back resurgence) is a good thing,” Sullivan told Pro Football Talk,

"I think when you’re going to start paying players that are going to touch the ball 25-30 times a game, that makes more sense than paying a guy that, on a good day, touches it seven.”

The contract is just an off-field reason to want to get an Achane contract done as quickly as possible.

On the field, Achane is one of Miami’s best players, as evidenced by winning the team’s MVP award in 2025. The Dolphins already have gone through some attrition this offseason by moving Jaylen Waddle for a first-round pick to the Denver Broncos, trading Minkah Fitzpatrick to the New York Jets, and releasing Tua Tagovailoa and Tyreek Hill.

Sullivan mentioned wanting to keep players that touch the ball 25-30 times a game, which is certainly something a running back of Achane’s caliber can do. He touched the ball 335 times last year, and could certainly stand to see the ball in his hands more often this upcoming year.

Keeping Achane in the fold will only help further the development of the offense, and potentially create a dynamic run game with Malik Willis. That should be the start of building a core in Miami’s new offense.

For now, however, we all wait as Achane and the Dolphins search for a middle ground on a new deal.