What's a Realistic Turnaround Time for the Dolphins?

The Miami Dolphins are starting over with a new general manager and new head coach

The Miami Dolphins introductory press conference for GM Jon-Eric Sullivan and head coach Jeff Hafley | Alain Poupart/Miami Dolphins On SI

After a 2025 season that their GM called beforehand a reset, the Miami Dolphins are now in full-blown rebuilding mode.

The Dolphins are starting over with a new general manager (Jon-Eric Sullivan) and a new head coach (Jeff Hafley) with a roster that needs a lot of work and without the cap space needed to make all the necessary adjustments.

So it's not a big leap to suggest the Dolphins might have to take a step back before they can move forward to finally, thankfully, mercifully get to where they want to go, which starts with a playoff win and ends hopefully with lifting the Lombardi Trophy after a Super Bowl title.

But the big question right now is what the rebuilding project will look like in 2026 and, more importantly, how long before we can realistically expect the Dolphins to be thinking about playoff contention.

WHERE THE DOLPHINS STAND

To be fair, as we examined after the end of the 2025 season, the Dolphins sure look like they have a long way to go to contention.

The Dolphins, quite frankly, do not have what anyone would suggest is a good roster because the talent pool gets pretty shallow after the top 6-7 players — and we know those would include De'Von Achane, Jaylen Waddle, Patrick Paul, Aaron Brewer, Jordyn Brooks, Minkah Fitzpatrick and Zach Sieler.

Most importantly, the Dolphins have a gigantic question mark at the most important position, that of course being quarterback.

The 2026 starter probably is not currently on the roster and it's also not likely coming from the draft where the QB class consists of Fernando Mendoza and a whole bunch of prospects with question marks — and the Dolphins ain't getting Mendoza.

This means coming up with a veteran option who could be available, with the logical target being Malik Willis, but also understanding that no matter how good Malik Willis looked in his limited appearances with the Packers the past two seasons, this is still a quarterback with a grand total of six starts in four years.

So, barring a big surprise, the Dolphins are going to have to hope for a pleasantly surprising development to get high-end quarterback play in 2026.

The 2026 season logically needs to be all about establishing a foundation and bringing the "Green Bay way" to South Florida to create the "Miami method."

Sullivan emphasized the draft-and-develop philosophy that has served the Packers so well through the years, but also mentioned the key free agents they've added when needed.

The time to add "key free agents" — like the Packers did with Josh Jacobs and Xavier McKinney, to point out two examples — won't be this offseason, first because the Dolphins have a tough cap situation and second because the priority again in 2026 should be getting the franchise back on the right track.

Yes, there have been great one-year turnaround stories around the NFL, with New England the most obvious this season and Washington the great example last year. But those two success stories were accomplished with Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels, both top 5 picks at quarterbacks who elevated the entire team.

The Dolphins hopefully will be able to land that kind of elite talent at quarterback sooner rather than later, though it's difficult to envision them doing it right away. And minus that difference-maker at quarterback, the rest of the roster has to have the ability to carry the team.

And this is where the Dolphins' lack of depth comes into play, and why 2026 doesn't seem like a realistic timetable for a return to contention.

Of course, maybe the outlook changes if all the young players who got playing time this past season take a big step in 2026, and that includes a bunch of names like Chop Robinson, Kenneth Grant, Jonah Savaiinaea, Jason Marshall Jr., Jaylen Wright, just to name five.

WHAT DOLPHINS HISTORY SAYS

By our calculations, this is the fourth time the Dolphins will be undergoing a significant rebuilding, not counting the early days of the franchise, and all of those have come since 2000.

Those would include 2005, 2008, 2012 and 2019.

The best-case scenario for the Dolphins obviously would be a repeat of 2008 when Miami hired Bill Parcells, Jeff Ireland and Tony Sparano and turned a 1-15 team into an 11-5 AFC East champion after adding a bunch of veterans in the offseason and landing QB Chad Pennington as a free agent in August.

But, of course, that team had a lot of cap space available in the offseason and getting Pennington was a stroke of luck that happened only because Brett Favre decided to come out of retirement for one more year and the New York Jets were too happy to dump Pennington in his favor.

That formula also had its limitations because the Dolphins built an older team with an injury-prone quarterback and the success of 2008 never could be matched.

The 2019 rebuilding project was about clearing the roster and adding cap space and draft capital and it produced very good results the second year, with Miami signing a bunch of veteran free agents (including Byron Jones, Kyle Van Noy and Emmanuel Ogbah) and added three first-round picks with Tua Tagovailoa, Austin Jackson and Noah Igbinoghene.

The Dolphins were able to go 10-6 in 2020 and were in playoff contention on the final Sunday of the regular season and ran off a string of four consecutive winning seasons, though the elusive goal of winning a playoff game never materialized.

The rebuilding project of 2005 with Nick Saban as the head coach looked promising after a 9-7 first season that included a season-ending winning streak, but the rest is painful Dolphins history with the selection of Daunte Culpepper to play quarterback the next season instead of Drew Brees and Saban's abrupt departure to become the head coach at Alabama after saying he wasn't going to be the head coach at Alabama.

In 2012, the Dolphins started over with new head coach Joe Philbin and first-round quarterback Ryan Tannehill and what followed were four seasons of mediocre football (always around .500) until Adam Gase took over and enjoyed one successful year before the .500 football returned.

In terms of where the current Dolphins stand right now, they're probably right now at the same stage as the 2019 Dolphins were, coming off a below-.500 season, with a quarterback who appears on his way out and cap room to clear.

Whether they follow the same path remains to be seen, as is the case with what the results will look like.