The Dolphins’ 2025 rookie class is doing something Miami hasn’t seen in years — and it’s exposing the cost of past mistakes
The 2025 rookie class is reaping the rewards of past negligence.
The Miami Dolphins aren’t necessarily the youngest team in the NFL. According to Spotrac, their 53-man roster is tied for the 10th-youngest in the NFL. But that is still a far cry from the team’s status last year as one of the oldest rosters in football.
The Dolphins have leaned back into the NFL Draft as a major pipeline for their talent acquisition. Miami made eight picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, and most of them are playing meaningful football.
Just how much football is this rookie class playing? Relative to the last few years in Miami, the 2025 class is lapping the field. Some of that is a result of necessity, but the raw numbers highlight just how big a fingerprint this year’s rookies have on the team. It also underscores the hidden cost of how Miami lost its team-building way over the last few years.
The Dolphins’ 2025 rookie class is lapping recent Miami draft classes in snaps
The Dolphins’ rookies have played 1,568 total snaps on offense, defense, and special teams.
The number would be higher if fifth-round rookie Jason Marshall Jr. hadn’t succumbed to a hamstring injury in the first month of the season. He’s been designated to return from injured reserve. That number of snaps may not be setting any NFL records, but it is smashing the impact of the Dolphins’ last three drafts.
The 2024 draft class, which featured a pair of promising trench players in tackle Patrick Paul and edge defender Chop Robinson to go with skill players Malik Washington and Jaylen Wright, combined to post 1,940 total snaps played as rookies. In 17 games. This year’s group is less than 400 snaps away from that mark, and we have one half of the Week 9 contest against Baltimore left before we officially hit the halfway mark of the regular season.
The 2023 draft class featured just four total players. Cam Smith and De’Von Achane were drafted in the top 100 and combined to give the Dolphins 537 snaps as rookies. Almost half of those came from Smith on special teams.
Miami’s other two picks, tight end Elijah Higgins and lineman Ryan Hayes, failed to make the 53-man roster. Neither played a down in Miami as rookies. That means this year’s rookie class has posted nearly three times as many snaps in just half of the season as the 2023 class did in a whole season.
2025 Miami Dolphins rookie snap count leaders (through Week 8)
- OG Jonah Savaiinaea – 497 total snaps
- DT Kenneth Grant – 310 total snaps
- SAF Dante Trader Jr. – 279 total snaps
- IDL Jordan Phillips – 242 total snaps
- RB Ollie Gordon II – 139 total snaps
And you wonder why the depth in Miami withered on the vine in 2024. The 2022 class was, believe it or not, somehow even worse. Miami again made four picks — this time with none in the top-100.
Linebacker Channing Tindall, wide receiver Erik Ezukanma, edge defender Cameron Goode, and third-string quarterback Skylar Thompson combined to play 397 snaps as rookies in 17 games during the 2022 regular season. And 167 of those snaps went to Tindall on special teams.
This year’s group is offering Miami a sorely needed infusion of young talent playing at high volumes. Perhaps it wouldn’t have had to be this way if the team had more closely coveted their draft picks from 2022 through 2o24.
But it didn’t. So, as a result, these rookies reap the rewards of accelerated playing opportunities. Miami’s future is in its hands, and how quickly it grows up will go a long way in determining who coaches them in the future and who makes the next round of picks.
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