What Are Realistic Expectations for the Dolphins Defense?

The Miami Dolphins’ defense will look fairly different from what it did last season. The secondary has gotten a complete overhaul, the pass-rush group is much healthier, and the linebacker room has several new faces.

All of those moves are in service of improving defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver’s unit in his second season in South Florida. After setting realistic expectations for the offense Tuesday, we’ve decided to do the same for the defense.

The challenging aspect of doing so is that Miami’s defense was quite effective by several metrics last season.

Weaver’s unit allowed the fourth-fewest yards per game and the 10th-fewest points per game. However, if you watched Miami’s defense last season, it hardly felt like a top-10 unit when it mattered most.

The Dolphins finished 27th in turnovers and in sacks. They were plagued by poor tackling and lackluster performances against good teams.

So, what are realistic expectations for a unit that finished top 10 in some major categories, still missed the mark, and made so many changes this offseason? Let’s find out.

Realistic Expectations for Miami’s Run Defense

The Dolphins were ninth in rushing yards allowed per game last season, which is a pretty good mark. However, the Dolphins have the opportunity to be a more effective unit this season, even if they give up some more total yards.

Miami’s 3.61 opponents' yards post-contact was the worst mark in the league last season. The next-closest team was the Cleveland Browns, who allowed 3.34 opponent yards post-contact.

What does this mean? Despite being the worst tackling team in the sport last season, the Dolphins still had a respectable run defense.

We’re expecting that number to improve in 2025 — it feels almost impossible that it could get worse. The team swapped out Jordan Poyer and Jevon Holland, two of the team’s worst tacklers, for Minkah Fitzpatrick and some combination of Ashtyn Davis and Ifeatu Melifonwu.

The team’s swap of David Long Jr. for Tyrel Dodson and Willie Gay Jr. also should help in that area.

While all of that is great, the team also is relying on some younger players in the middle of the interior of the line. We’ve spoken highly about Kenneth Grant and Jordan Phillips all offseason, but they’re rookies.

They’ll have some bumpy games this season and probably struggle with consistency. That’s just par for the course with young players, especially up front. It doesn’t make them bad, but it’ll likely lead to more yards for opposing teams.

We think it’s pretty realistic if the Dolphins hover around the same place they were last season in yards allowed. However, we also feel Miami’s run defense will be less feast or famine in 2025.

Even if they drop from ninth to 12th in yards allowed, the team might be more consistent from down to down, allowing fewer big plays and showing up in big moments against physical teams.

Realistic Expectations for Miami’s Pass Rush

We’ve decided to divide the Dolphins’ pass rush and secondary into separate categories. And while we think Miami’s run defense will mostly mirror last season’s unit, this one is poised for significant improvement.

As mentioned above, the Dolphins were 27th in sacks last season. Of course, that was without Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips, who are healthy this season. That also doesn’t account for a full season of Chop Robinson playing up to his potential — he only broke out in the second half last season.

Combining those three players with Zach Sieler, who has recorded at least 10 sacks in back-to-back seasons, and recent veteran addition Matthew Judon means the Dolphins should be top 10 in sacks this season.

Sacks aren’t the only measure of a good pass rush, though. Generating pressure is arguably a better indicator of a talented pass rush, and the Dolphins have much less ground to cover in that area. The team was 15th in pressures last season.

That’s not bad, and that number should go up this season because of Chubb and Phillips, but also players like Gay. He’s an excellent blitzer and sub-package pass rusher when needed.

Weaver also has access to a more diverse safety group, which could allow him to generate more pressure from that spot as well.

The only wrench to throw into Miami’s pass-rush improvement is health. Phillips and Chubb are incredibly talented players who have extensive injury histories.

If they go down again, Chop, Judon and Sieler are still a respectable group, but it’s hardly a top-10-caliber unit. We will assume the Dolphins are mostly healthy for this article because it’s impossible to predict injuries.

With that in mind, we think it’s realistic for the Dolphins to finish with a top-10 pass rush this season by sacks and pressures.

Realistic Expectations for Miami’s Secondary

While we’re fairly bullish on the Dolphins’ run defense and pass rush being, at minimum, quality units, the same can’t be said for the secondary.

Miami was 10th in passing yards allowed last season, but that was with Jalen Ramsey and Kendall Fuller at cornerback. Moving on from Ramsey was probably the right move for the locker room, but there’s no denying that he’s better than every cornerback on Miami’s roster.

On the team’s initial depth chart, Storm Duck and Jack Jones were listed as starters outside. Duck is a 2024 UDFA who showed some flashes last season but hardly looked like a long-term starter, and Jones is one of the most feast-or-famine cornerbacks in the league.

In the slot, rookie sixth-round pick Jason Marshall Jr. is expected to start. He had a nice preseason, but the regular season will be a much different test. The team signed veteran Rasul Douglas recently, but he’s coming off the worst season of his career and is on the wrong side of 30.

Miami did its best to add veterans during training camp and even took a swing on JuJu Brents from the waiver wire, but this is still one of the league’s most underwhelming position groups.

We do like the changes the team made at safety. Fitzpatrick should be a steady presence on the back end, but he’s also not the All-Pro player he was a few years ago.

Melifonwu and Davis are better than Poyer, but he was arguably the worst safety in the NFL last season, so that bar isn’t overly high. The real question with those guys is health.

Davis had a lower-body injury that kept him out for most of camp, but he has started practicing again. Melifonwu has an extensive injury history and also missed a good bit of camp.

Even if a few of this unit’s “ifs” go the right way, it’s hard not to think this unit will regress in 2025. We think it’s realistic for the Dolphins’ secondary to be a bottom-10 unit this coming season.

Final Thoughts

Outside of health, the most critical question for Miami’s success on defense this season is whether the pass-rush unit can prop up the secondary.

The Dolphins have essentially placed all of their eggs in that basket. They chose to ignore cornerback until the summer and are betting on a few safety acquisitions with legitimate question marks.

There’s no denying that the front seven is better this season. And Miami needed to improve in that area if it wanted to dispel the notion that it’s a soft team. That could ultimately lead to a better defense this season, but it feels more like a house of cards than a well-built structure.

The other part of this equation is Weaver’s scheme. The Dolphins will attempt to play their cornerbacks in press alignments more often this season. They want the cornerbacks to be physical in the contact window before dropping into zone coverage.

The idea is to slow down the receivers and give the pass rush time to get home. They’ll get super creative with packages and blitzes, too, but that’ll be the crux of the scheme this season.

Will that work? We’ll have to wait and see. We think it’s realistic to expect the Dolphins to be a middle-of-the-pack defense this season with a potent pass rush and a unique scheme that covers some personnel weaknesses.

Just like the offense, the Dolphins’ defense should be less concerned with where they rank overall and more concerned with how they match up against quality teams.

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