ESPN analyst nails the root of Miami's culture issue — and why the Dolphins’ 2025 course correction may be their only hope of fixing it
The 2025 offseason has been one of major change for the Miami Dolphins. Many of the Dolphins' long in the tooth veterans have moved on in some way, shape, or form.For some fans, the question of why the Dolphins have done what they've done amid the backdrop of a potential hot seat has lingered. Miami […]
The 2025 offseason has been one of major change for the Miami Dolphins. Many of the Dolphins' long in the tooth veterans have moved on in some way, shape, or form.
For some fans, the question of why the Dolphins have done what they've done amid the backdrop of a potential hot seat has lingered. Miami has not acted with the sense of frenetic spending urgency that many expected that they would after stumbling to an 8-9 season in 2024. The clues of Miami's strategy have always been rooted in getting back to basics. This is a team that had, in some ways, lost its way as of late.
When the Dolphins committed to this vision back in 2019, albeit with a different head coach at the helm, their focus was to create a sustainable model for competing. The glass ceiling Miami has been pressed up against underscores that something is broken with how they've tried to continue to press forward. ESPN's Louis Riddick, during a recent interview with Marisa Marino of 'DolphinsTalk', highlighted the root of where Miami's gone wrong.
Louis Riddick underscores the root of where it has gone wrong
There's been lots of focus on culture. Plenty of blame attributed to quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. Mike McDaniel and Chris Grier have received ample vitrol, too. Each has had their individual hands in why the Dolphins most recent build peaked too soon. But the deeper issue lies in Miami's departure from their team-building strategy — it just took a while for the issues to seep to the surface in the face of "culture" issues.
"I think culture can be very much so about momentum. You get enough players who really buy into the colors, the tradition, the way of doing things, and really want to take the message that's delivered from Mike — really want to disseminate that through the locker room and have it translate onto the football field. You gotta get enough of those guys who really believe, who are really bought in. And right now it just sounds like there's not enough of that. There's not enough of that homegrown, 'I really do represent the Miami Dolphins' type of culture down there."
– Louis Riddick, ESPN
Riddick is absolutely right. Take an inventory of the Dolphins' most prominent players from the past several seasons. Tyreek Hill was traded for a bunch of draft picks and given the moon. Jalen Ramsey arrived as a mercenary who essentially hand-picked the Dolphins as his next destination.
Jordan Poyer re-joined Mike McDaniel for a fun reunion with an old pal and a chance to play in the warm sun. Poyer went so far as to say he didn't feel the attachment to his Dolphins teammates in 2024 to lay his body on the line for his teammates like he had in years past in Buffalo during an interview this past offseason.
Names like Bradley Chubb and Jordyn Brooks appear to be hits, and good leaders, despite coming from external environments. So, too, is Aaron Brewer and Jonnu Smith on offense. But even Smith, after a successful season, is tugging at the Dolphins' wallet for a contract adjustment after just one season.
Terron Armstead was everything you could have possibly wanted him to be when he signed a free agent contract with the Dolphins in 2022. So, as Riddick later concedes in the interview, you can get players who buy in from the outside. But it's much, much harder.
"That's not to say you can't have free agents who also buy into those types of things. It's a little bit harder sometimes when you have guys and you bring them in from the outside, when you have free agents and bring them in from the outside and they're used to doing things a certain way and maybe it's just not the way that they're used to doing it," said Riddick.
"It's not the way that they were brought up in the game of doing it. It's hard sometimes to keep them locked in."
Why Miami's 2025 offseason strategy matters
Let's be honest now. Many fans were frustrated to see an offseason unfold that leaned into young talent, a heavy focus on the draft and selectively targeting role players in free agency.
But Miami's issue has been not with spending money to be competitive. The Dolphins' issue has been picking the right people (not football players) to give their money to. Miami lost the sauce. When this build started in 2019, Miami talked about building a sustainable winner.
Once upon a time, Miami was drafting hoards of talent in the NFL Draft. The 2020 and 2021 NFL Drafts brought the Dolphins five first-round draft picks, plus an additional six choices between the second and third rounds. That type of volume is certainly unsustainable. But to go from that to making just eight total draft selections between the 2022 & 2023 NFL Drafts combined? With only two choices in the top-100?
Let that sink in. Miami made eleven draft picks in the top-100 between 2020 and 2021 before making just two in the same range between 2022 and 2023. Sustainable winners don't burn themselves thin on their most precious resource, NFL Draft capital. Sustainable winners don't field a patchwork roster of veterans in a grand chemistry experiment — that, in hindsight, is where the Dolphins lost the plot in 2024. And technically, as early as 2022.
That's why everyone should be glad to see the Dolphins are getting back to their roots in 2025. Yes, it means you're going to say goodbye to some proven talent, like Calais Campbell and, eventually, Jalen Ramsey. But it also means the nucleus of your roster is going to be talent that you groomed yourself. For every Calais Campbell, there's a Jalen Ramsey. For every Terron Armstead, there's a Jordan Poyer.
The Dolphins have reset the deck. Their focus has been young, hungry football players that will, presumably, buy in on how the Dolphins want to do things because they're the right people to fit the vision — not just the attractive football player that can provide talent. And because they're young, the Dolphins' brass gets to be the ones to impress to that talent how it's done in the NFL.
Miami's focus this offseason was rooted in bolstering foundational talent in the trenches. Their ancillary additions can be viewed as a fine-tuning of the role players on either side of the ball. And competition, plus a key veteran, is going to be relied upon to decide who plays in the secondary.
I can't promise you that it's going to work. But what I can promise you is that the operation of this year's offseason was the closest thing to what Miami promised when they decided to undertake a rebuild back in 2019 — modeling their personnel process in a manner that would lend itself to sustainable winning.
The two-year infusion of talent includes talented trench players like Chop Robinson, Patrick Paul, Kenneth Grant, Jonah Savaiinaea, Jordan Phillips, plus promising skill players like Malik Washington, Jaylen Wright and more.
The challenge for the Dolphins will simply be to perform well enough in 2025, after a disappointing 2024, to earn the confidence needed to push into the future with conviction and confidence while maintaining the core decision makers currently in place.
‘You don’t fix something by bitching about it’ — Mike McDaniel has a strong comment on primary issue plaguing the Miami Dolphins
The Fins’ head coach didn’t mince words on Wednesday
