What Are Realistic Expectations for Dolphins QB Kyle McCord's First NFL Start?

Kyle McCord will be getting a huge opportunity when he starts for the Miami Dolphins against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, the 2025 sixth-round pick heading for his NFL debut after not being on an active roster as a rookie.

The Dolphins believed in McCord enough this summer that they traded a future sixth-round pick to the Green Bay Packers and immediately made him their backup behind another former Packers player, Malik Willis.

McCord obviously is an unknown quantity as an NFL quarterback because his rookie season was spent on the Philadelphia Eagles practice squad and he hasn't taken a snap so far for the Dolphins.

His scouting report comes from his time at Ohio State and Syracuse, along with what he did during the preseason, both with the Eagles last summer and withthe Packers this year.

"I pride myself on just being the ultimate competitor out there on the field," McCord said Wednesday. "And then on top of that, I feel like being able to process information at a quick rate and getting the ball out and being accurate and being on time, I feel like those are all things throughout college and into my preseason games in the NFL that I had success with. So I'm just trying to keep that rolling."

But McCord just said it right there, "throughout college and into my preseason games."

NFL regular season games just aren't the same.

So what should we expect to see from McCord, based on circumstances and precedent?

RECENT DOLPHINS QBs IN THEIR FIRST NFL START

McCord will become the seventh quarterback to make his NFL debut in a Dolphins uniform since 2000, joining Sage Rosenfels in 2004, John Beck in 2007, Chad Henne in 2009, Ryan Tannehill in 2012, Tua Tagovailoa in 2020, Skylar Thompson in 2022 and Quinn Ewers in 2025.

Beck, Henne, Tannehill and Tagovailoa were either first- or second-round picks, so their situation was a bit different — regardless of how things played out for them — and that makes Rosenfels, Thompson and Ewers better comps from a Dolphins standpoint.

Ewers actually is a very good comp because, like McCord before him, he was a sixth-round pick who had played against big-time competition in college, in his case at Texas — not even mentioning that both Ewers and McCord started off at Ohio State.

After beginning the season as the No. 3 quarterback behind Tagovailoa and veteran Zach Wilson, Ewers moved up to number 2 and was given the keys to the offense for the final three games of the 2025 season after Miami had been

His first start came against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 16 and Ewers completed 20 for 30 passes for 260 yards. The good news is he had completions of 20 yards or more to four different receivers — tight ends Greg Dulcich and Darren Waller, and wide receivers Malik Washington and Jaylen Waddle — and the bad news was he threw two picks.

More importantly, he didn't look overwhelmed or out of place.

Skylar Thompson's first NFL start deserved an asterisk because before he started against the Minnesota Vikings he had played all but one snap the previous week after veteran Teddy Bridgewater, in for the injury Tagovailoa, was pulled by a concussion spotter after the Dolphins' first snap of the game.

Like Thompson and Ewers, Rosenfels also had seen action before making his first NFL start, which came in the 2004 season finale when the Dolphins had a 4-11 record.

Beck and Tannehill are the only two whose NFL debuts came in their first appearance, Tannehill in the 2012 season opener and Beck in a Week 11 game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Unlike Ewers last year, Beck did look overwhelmed and he wound up going 9-for-22 for 109 yards as a clear early indicator the Dolphins had made a poor second-round selection.

So it bears repeating, the best comp for McCord's situation clearly is Ewers.

TRYING TO PROJECT McCORD STATS

One big difference between Ewers last year and McCord this year, though, is the talent on offense.

While Dulcich and Washington are back for the Dolphins, Waddle and Waller are gone and De'Von Achane is on injured reserve.

That's not going to make things easy for McCord, who watched from the sideline Malik Willis struggling to put up big numbers with a very young and inexperienced supporting cast on offense.

The Colts are struggling this season with a 2-7 record, and their defense has recorded only two interceptions all season despite the presence of quality cornerbacks Sauce Gardner and Charvarius Ward. Indianapolis also is coming off a game where it allowed 508 yards of offense in an overtime loss against the Dallas Cowboys.

That was Indy's first game without stud defensive tackle DeForrest Buckner after he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers.

The Colts made four trades in all before the deadline, but the other three involved offensive players.

It's been a lot season for Indy, but the Colts at least now no longer have to deal with the uncertainty of whether key players like Jonathan Taylor or Daniel Jones would be traded and maybe that will give them some juice the rest of the season.

In any case, we're certainly not expecting the Dolphins to put 508 yards against Indy on Sunday.

And we're not expecting McCord to light up the Colts secondary in his first NFL action. Matching Ewers' completions and yardage might even be a very bold goal, although a bigger key might be avoiding those interceptions.

So maybe a fair expectation, based on what we know of McCord and the Dolphins' offensive production this season, would be something along the lines of, say, 215 passing yards with one touchdown and no picks.

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