The Miami Dolphins have made someone accountable for their woeful special teams play to start 2026
The Miami Dolphins are making a roster change on Tuesday to help address their brutal special teams performance.
The Miami Dolphins have had several units that could best be described as a “struggle” to start the 2026 season.
The entirety of special teams is included on that list. And after six weeks, the team has reportedly had enough. The Dolphins are making a roster change and, in the process, are overturning a training camp competition that the team held this offseason. Kicker Riley Patterson has been released, per Adam Schefter. His replacement? Zane Gonzalez.
The Miami Dolphins conduct an about-face on their summer kicking competition
The first sign of trouble on this front (beyond the missed kicks) came on Monday. Head coach Jeff Hafley mentioned, amid the kickoff coverage woes in Week 5, that the team had tried to orchestrate touchbacks in the game against Cincinnati. Those kicks, however, were still returned.
“We did try to kick them out of the end zone; that was discussed and just not executed the way we wanted it to be,” said Hafley.
Yeah. That’ll do it. If the kicking game isn’t executing “kick it into/out of the end zone” appropriately, then there’s a problem. Patterson’s kicking issues, after a reliable 2025 with the Dolphins, extended to point scoring opportunities, too. Patterson has missed a field goal or extra point in three of five games to start the season after missing three kicks in 17 games combined last season. It was time.
Credit to the Dolphins; they made sure performance didn’t go unchecked. And now, they’ll turn to the same man they tabbed in the spring to try to replace Patterson — Gonzalez.
Gonzalez was released in August with an injury settlement. He’s clearly sat out the required duration of time and is ready to roll. Miami will need him to be, too. Both for the field position battle and for the sake of getting points on the board as much as possible. Miami’s operation can’t be leaving points on the field. We’ll find out soon enough if Gonzalez is right to fix it.
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