Chris Grier says the terms “soft rebuild” and “rest” have not been used inside the Miami Dolphins organization, but at the very least maybe youth movement would apply based on the state of the roster.
The Dolphins head into the 2025 NFL draft with more glaring needs — at least from the outside — than they’ve had at this time in several years and Grier himself acknowledged the team would “need NFL-ready players.”
Even given Grier’s statement that he feels confident the team’s two starting safeties already are “in the building” — and that would mean any combination of Ifeatu Melifonwu, Ashtyn Davis, Elijah Campbell and Patrick McMorris — it’s not a stretch to suggest the Dolphins still need viable starting options at cornerback (and maybe two at that spot), defensive line and guard.
The question now is whether those players will join the roster out of the 2025 draft, via trade or from what’s left of the free agent pool.
The first question is whether this can be done, even with the Dolphins having good but not great draft capital — because 10 picks is nice, but having only three of them in the top 100 and two before number 98 isn’t outstanding.
Looking at Grier’s time as Dolphins GM, which began in 2016, shows it can get done.
It did help that the Dolphins had great draft capital in 2020 and 2021 — with nine combined in the first two rounds of those two drafts — but they still managed to get five rookie starters in 2020, followed by three the next year.
The five in 2020 — rookie starters classified as though who started more than half the games — were QB Tua Tagovailoa, DT Raekwon Davis and three offensive linemen, Austin Jackson, Robert Hunt and Solomon Kindley.
Of those five, all were first- or second-round picks except for Kindley, who the Dolphins selected in the fourth round.
The next year, Jaylen Waddle, Jevon Holland and Liam Eichenberg all became rookie starters as first- or second-round picks, while first-round selection Jaelan Phillips started five games and was part of the defensive rotation.
The Dolphins also had three rookie starters in 2019, though that season was an outlier because the Dolphins were rebuilding/resetting/retooling/tanking — whatever term you want to choose. Regardless, the Dolphins got immediate starters with first-round pick Christian Wilkins and third-round pick Michael Deiter, as well as undrafted free agent Nik Needham.
So, yes, the Dolphins have done it before when it comes to landing multiple rookie starters in the draft — and it would greatly help if they could do it again in 2025.
But is having multiple rookie starters conducive to success?
When it comes to making the playoffs, the answer for the Dolphins has been no — with an asterisk.
The asterisk accompanies the 2020 season because while the Dolphins didn’t make the playoffs, they did finish with a 10-6 record, which is tied for the franchise’s second-best record since 2008 behind only the 11-6 finish of 2023.
But when the Dolphins made the playoffs in 2022, they had one rookie who started more than half the games, and that was undrafted cornerback Kader Kohou.
In 2023, the Dolphins had no rookies start nine or more games; in fact, the only who started any games at all were third-round running back De’Von Achane and undrafted tight end Julian Hill.
When the Dolphins made the playoffs in 2016, Laremy Tunsil was the only rookie starter.
In fact, the most rookie starters the Dolphins ever have had in a playoff season was three — and that came all the way back in 1970, which happened to be the first time they reached the postseason.
Miami made the playoffs with two rookie starters five times — in 1990 (Richmond Webb, Keith Sims), 1992 (Marco Coleman, Troy Vincent), 1994 (Tim Bowens, Aubrey Beavers), 1997 (Jason Taylor, Derrick Rodgers) and 2008 (Jake Long, Kendall Langford).
So maybe the Dolphins don’t want to have three rookies in the starting lineup in 2025. They also may not have a choice.
And in the final analysis, maybe that would mean that reset or soft rebuild indeed were appropriate terms.
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