Jeff Hafley is hoping to keep the Miami Dolphins out of a trap many teams fall into with their training camp accommodations
Jeff Hafley’s not interested in turning his Miami Dolphins joint practices into something they’re not intended for.
The Miami Dolphins are into their final week of organized team activities for the 2026 offseason. It marks the end of Jeff Hafley’s first impression with his football team.
But our first calendar year with Hafley as the lead man in charge of the Miami Dolphins will offer many more firsts. July and August will bring our first training camp. During today’s press availability Hafley offered some insight on what to expect with one key component. Joint practices. The Dolphins are scheduled for two, one against Washington and one against New York. Hafley admitted this morning that he wasn’t a fan of having multiple joint practices with the same team. Why? Because, in his experience, too many of those encounters end with exceedingly hostile conditions that run counter-productive to prepping a team to start playing for real.
Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley is not a fan of multiple joint practices with the same opponent
“Every one I’ve experienced on the second practice, which is what we used to do, whatever team gets the best of the team day one, the other team comes out and tries to overdo it, and they’re usually…usually stuff just gets bad and you have a higher chance for injury. A fight is a fight, if it happens, you clear it up. It shouldn’t happen at joint practice, I got it. You’re just worried about it going too far and anybody getting injured.
The other thing is this: when you look at blocks of practice, usually you have a high day, a low day, and a medium day. Those joint practices, you should maximize your reps. So the ones might get 50 snaps, which is equivalent to we are working towards playing in a game. You can’t do that two days in a row. Or it’s like playing two games and we’re going to wear these guys out.”
— Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley on why the team is doing just one joint practice per team
Caring about the ‘why’ matters
You can choose to agree or disagree with Hafley on this front. I’m choosing to defer to his experience on the matter. But the thing I appreciate the most is the ‘why’ behind it all. Great coaches are detail oriented and they don’t leave much to chance. To hear why Hafley’s preseason schedule looks the way that it does is insightful.
To know the purpose behind the practice schedule sets the scene. It should be a pair of very competitive practices against the Commanders and Giants this August.
The Miami Dolphins will have a little over a month off, followed by several weeks of training camp practices before we get there. But in the meantime, it’s nice to know this has all been thought out ahead of time. Hafley knows what he’s looking for in those practices and is unwilling to let anyone’s ego get in the way of productivity.
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