Miami Dolphins

The Miami Dolphins finished 2025 at 7 and 10, missed the playoffs for the second straight year, and stretched their playoff win drought to 25 seasons. The fourth and final year of the Mike McDaniel era played out in three acts — a 1 and 6 start that got general manager Chris Grier fired, a five-wins-in-six-games middle that briefly revived everything, and a 1 and 3 collapse that sealed McDaniel's firing four days after a 38 to 10 Week 18 beatdown in New England. The headline moments were brutal: Tyreek Hill lost for the year to a knee injury in the Week 4 win over the Jets, and a 45-point Week 16 home loss to the Bengals that triggered Tua Tagovailoa's benching for rookie Quinn Ewers. The one shining moment came in Week 10, when Miami walked in as heavy underdogs and smashed the Buffalo Bills 30 to 13, their first win over Buffalo since 2022. A season that felt close to being saved instead quietly ended the Tua, McDaniel, and Grier era all at once. Miami didn't just miss — Miami got muffed.

By the numbers, Miami averaged 19.2 points per game while surrendering 24.5 — a scoring margin worse than negative five. The offense confirmed it: minus 4.8 total expected points added passing and minus 11.0 rushing, every phase below neutral for 17 straight weeks. Third down landed at 35 percent, red-zone touchdown rate was a miserable 19 percent on 143 trips inside the 20, and the turnover math was ugly — 23 giveaways against 18 takeaways. And this was not a steady team hiding behind averages — this was boom-or-bust football. 8 points in the opener at Indianapolis, 6 at Cleveland, 6 against Baltimore, 10 at New England to close, next to three separate 34-point outputs and a 30-burger in Buffalo. When the Dolphins were bad, they were unplayable. When they were good, they looked like a wild card team. The bad weeks kept winning the argument.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. This unit averaged just 195.4 passing yards per game with 23 touchdowns against 23 total offensive turnovers, and the season total in passing expected points added — the all-in measure of how much the passing game helped or hurt Miami's scoring chances — landed at minus 4.8, boom-or-bust and mostly bust. Over 17 games, that's a passing attack worse than just handing the ball off every snap. Sacks totaled 38, explosive-play rate was a thin 3.5 plays of 20-plus yards per game, and the whole operation cratered hard enough to get Tagovailoa benched in Week 16 for Quinn Ewers. Tagovailoa's final Miami line — 14 games, 2,660 yards, 20 touchdowns, 15 interceptions, completion percentage 1.4 points over expected — was the season in miniature: competent on the margins, killed by the giveaways. The signature gut punch came in Week 7 at Cleveland, down 17 to 6 in the third, when a short throw intended for De'Von Achane got jumped and returned 34 yards for a pick-six — a single play worth minus 8 in expected points and a fair summary of how the passing game lost games. The passing offense got muffed.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. This was the bright spot, even if the headline number doesn't scream it — 120.6 rushing yards a game on 24.9 carries, 14 rushing touchdowns, and an expected points added figure of minus 11.0 dragged down by short-yardage stuffs more than by the lead back's work. De'Von Achane was the season MVP and it wasn't close: 1,350 rushing yards on 238 carries, 8 rushing touchdowns, another 488 yards and 4 scores through the air, 1,838 scrimmage yards, and a rushing expected points added total of plus 14. Achane's fingerprints were all over the Week 10 Buffalo upset — a 59-yard touchdown burst up the middle, and a 35-yard third-and-8 touchdown in the fourth that put the game away. The variance was real — boom-or-bust by design — but unlike the passing attack, when the run game hit, it hit for six. Consistent volume, explosive ceiling, and the only reason this offense stayed watchable.

Next up, the pass defense. Here's where Miami truly got muffed — 229.6 passing yards allowed per game, 29 passing touchdowns surrendered, and a passing expected points added allowed figure of plus 69.7. Remember, on defense we want that number to be a big negative. Plus 69.7 is one of the worst marks in football and matches the beat-writer read that Miami finished 28th in defense-adjusted value over average against the pass. The secondary gave up 0.13 expected points every single dropback, 66 explosive plays on the season, and converted stops on just 59 percent of opponent third downs. The one saving grace was situational pressure creating turnovers — Ifeatu Melifonwu picked off Josh Allen in the red zone during the Week 10 Buffalo statement win. But 39 sacks and 18 total takeaways across 17 games could not cover for how often this group got picked apart between the 20s.

And the run defense. The run defense allowed 133.5 yards per game on 4.9 yards per carry, gave up 18 rushing touchdowns, and finished at plus 19.9 expected points added allowed on the ground — again, on defense we want a big negative, so plus 19.9 means opposing runners moved the chains at will. The per-carry number was 0.04 expected points added allowed every handoff — a steady bleed rather than a boom-or-bust problem — and it showed up most in the ugly games: 38 in New England, 45 in Cincinnati, 33 in Indianapolis, where Miami simply could not get off the field. Jordan Brooks led the entire NFL with 183 tackles, which tells you exactly how much of this season the defense spent chasing runners downhill.