Life after Tyreek Hill starts now for the Dolphins — and the toughest challenge will be navigating a defensive cat-and-mouse game that’s pushed them for a while
How will teams choose to play the Dolphins without the presence of Tyreek Hill?
The Miami Dolphins are set to get an early preview of what the future looks like. Entering into the 2025 season, it was relatively well understood that star receiver Tyreek Hill’s contract was going to be untenable to play on in 2026 — a year in which Hill was owed $36 million in non-guaranteed salary in what was the final year of his contract. With Miami spending this offseason leaning into a youth movement, all stars appeared to be aligning for the Dolphins to go in a different direction offensively.
Now, four games into what would have been a curtain call season, the Dolphins hand has been forced. Hill is out for the season and the mantle of WR1 has been passed back to Jaylen Waddle. Waddle was Miami’s primary pass catcher back in 2021 and set a then-rookie record for receptions and followed that up in 2022 by leading qualifying receivers in yards per catch. He’s capable.
But Miami, as head coach Mike McDaniel and Tua Tagovailoa have talked about this offseason, has wrestled with how uniquely teams have played them from a coverage standpoint versus their own tendencies in the past. And getting reacclimatized to how teams are going to play a Tyreek Hill-less Miami Dolphins offense could be the biggest curveball that the Dolphins must be ready to sit on after spending so much time prepping for the unique approach teams have given them in recent years.
Biggest test for Dolphins without Tyreek Hill will be figuring out how teams play them differently each week
“We’ve had games where (Waddle) was out and only (Hill) was in; we’ve had games where ‘10’ was out and only ’17’ was in. Teams have gone to their normal base defense of what they would normally run from what we’ve seen on film, but I don’t know,” said Tagovailoa.
“That’s the beauty of football. We’ll see on Sunday what they want to do defensively, if they do want to keep a shell or if they want to fit the box and just tell us, ‘hey, pass the ball on us,’ then we’ll adjust accordingly.”
Tua Tagovailoa’s passing splits without Tyreek Hill on the field since 2022
- 192 completions on 257 attempts (74.7% completion percentage)
- 1,930 passing yards (7.5 yards per attempt)
- 8 passing touchdowns & 4 interceptions
- 99.5 passer rating
- 5.4 air yards per attempt
Will teams choose to continue to keep the roof on Miami’s offense by design? Will they opt to play more to their standard scheme? That’s been the issue Miami has had to troubleshoot through each game — the scouted looks on film the Dolphins have been seeing going back to 2024 aren’t what the Dolphins have been seeing on game days. Opposing teams have collectively seen the successful elements of defending the Dolphins and the book has been out on the formula.
Will the Dolphins be able to properly anticipate game plans from opposing defenses? Or will that prove to be a moving target that’s impossible to catch up to? The cat and mouse game of the NFL week-by-week has proven to have Miami caught in conflict between attacking the scouted looks a team puts on film versus the expected “Dolphins specific” looks that have been proven to help put the screws on a Tyreek Hill/Jaylen Waddle led passing attack.
They’ll get their first chance and clue on Sunday when the Dolphins travel to Carolina to play the Panthers.
Miami Dolphins News
So the Dolphins might actually be cursed in primetime games as Tyreek Hill joins extensive list of stars to suffer major injuries in the national spotlight
For the love of everything, keep the Dolphins out of the primetime schedule!
