Revisiting What May Have Been the Worst Dolphins Free Agent Class

The Miami Dolphins are not expected to be big players in free agency this offseason as they reshape their roster with a new general manager and a new head coach.

Whatever they do end up doing, it won't be very difficult to top the results of the last free agent period under former GM Chris Grier and former head coach Mike McDaniel.

In short, that free agent haul was an abject disaster, and quite possibly the worst since free agency became a thing in the offseason of 1993.

The Dolphins signed 11 unrestricted free agent last summer, none of them made a significant impact for the team in 2025, and now not a single one of them remains under contract with the team after wide receiver Nick Westbrook-Ikhine and guard James Daniels were released last month.

To refresh the memory of those who might have forgotten (perhaps by choice), the Dolphins' UFA class of 2025 consisted of RB Alexander Mattison, CB Artie Burns, QB Zach Wilson, S Ashtyn Davis, S Ifeatu Melifonwu, T Larry Borom, LB K.J. Britt, LB Willie Gay Jr., Daniels and Westbrook-Ikhine.

Brown didn't even make the team coming out of training camp; Mattison and Burns spent the entire season on IR, and the other nine combined to start 38 games.

The only ones who got significant playing time were Davis, Borom and Melifonwu, who started 12, 12 and eight games, respectively.

The argument very well could be made that Borom was the most successful acquisition, and this was a backup offensive lineman who was thrust into the starting lineup for most of the season after Austin Jackson sustained a foot injury in training camp.

But none of those free agents were difference-makers in a season when the Dolphins really could have used some, and worse they likely wound up costing Miami a compensatory fourth-round they could have gotten for losing Jevon Holland to the New York Giants.

What happened, though, is the Dolphins went for volume with their free agency plans last offseason, and there wasn't enough quality for the quantity.

WHERE THE 2025 FREE AGENT CLASS RANKS

In 2023, the Dolphins signed six UFAs and an alarming three didn't even make it to the 53-man roster, with offensive lineman Dan Feeney traded in August for a late-round pick. The one name of note here was safety DeShon Elliott, who was a full-time starter that season but left after only one year.

In 2021, the Dolphins signed 10 UFAs, but two of them failed to make the 53-man roster and running back Jordan Howard was cut before the halfway mark of the season. The biggest contributors of the group were backup defensive lineman John Jenkins and special teams mainstay Duke Riley.

In 2012, after the Dolphins hired Joe Philbin as head coach, they proceeded to put together a free agent class just about as bad as the one from last year. The Dolphins signed six players and four of them failed to make the 53 — LB Gary Guyton, T Artis Hicks, S Tyrell Johnson and LB Jamaal Westerman. The two who did make the 53 played only one season in Miami: CB Richard Marshall and WR Legedu Naanee.

The 1997 class also was forgettable with two of the four signees cut in camp and two others making minimal impact.

In the final analysis, the battle for worst Dolphins free agent class comes down to 2012 and 2025, and it wouldn't be way off to give the dubious award to the 2025 group.