Everyone is asking the wrong question about Malik Willis and the Miami Dolphins’ future at quarterback
Asking whether or not Miami Dolphins quarterback Malik Willis should be “the guy” long-term already is the wrong question.
Wind the clock back to late January, when general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan and head coach Jeff Hafley were introduced to the football world as Miami Dolphins. And, in that moment, Sullivan stated something that should be expected to serve as a foundational piece of his term with the Dolphins.
“We’re going to invest in that position every year if we can. Now, depending on where we are as a football team, it’ll be at different values, but we will draft quarterbacks every year, if not every other year, because I think you have to,” said Sullivan.
And yet here we are all these months later…asking all the wrong questions anyway.
Asking whether or not Miami Dolphins QB Malik Willis is showing enough to be “the guy” is the wrong question
Fast forward to Week 1, and the Dolphins’ quarterback room was an investment via free agency in Malik Willis, an investment via trade (Kyle McCord), and an investment through the waiver wire (Brady Cook). The Dolphins turned the whole position room upside down.
…are we not to expect they will continue in that philosophy this offseason? And most of the offseasons to come, so long as they are in Miami? Is that not what Sullivan stated all along?
I get it. The general sentiment is that your team is bad, you draft a quarterback, and your team becomes good. You stink to land a franchise savior who pulls your team out of the muck. Reality paints a very different picture, though. Plenty of highly drafted quarterbacks don’t pan out and the ones that do are often because of the fit with a franchise. And, for Miami, that’s going to mean keep swinging until there’s no doubt. But don’t take it from me. Take it from Sullivan himself, from early January.
“This process will lead us to the right guy”
“The process will lead us to the right guy. I think you look at people who have come from this process, whether you’re talking about John Dorsey going to Kansas City and signing Alex Smith and then drafting (Patrick) Mahomes, or John Schneider cycling through Charlie Whitehurst and Matt Flynn to finally get to Russell Wilson,” Sullivan told Cam Wolfe. “And then you look at what he’s done recently with Sam Darnold. Our process will get us there. There’s no roadmap, I don’t have a crystal ball, I can’t tell you how it’s going to happen, but I have a lot of faith and conviction that this process will lead us to the right guy.”
So if you’re asking whether or not Malik Willis is showing you enough in his first four weeks to be “the man” in Miami? I’d first tell you your sample size threshold is too low. And then I’d remind you that the Dolphins are going to be investing in quarterbacks constantly. Until there’s no doubt at all that they’ve landed the one.
Granted, that may not mean drafting one with a first-round draft choice every year. But Sullivan made it abundantly clear. This approach has room for sunk cost in the hunt for a quarterback. So if a terrific quarterback prospect is on the board when they’re picking, I’d somewhat expect them to make the pick. The bigger problem for 2027 is how the quarterback class is unfolding at the college level. It’s not what was advertised…at least so far.
It doesn’t have to be Willis or nothing. As a matter of fact, I think that’s the least likely outcome of them all. The Dolphins will almost certainly add to their quarterback room this offseason. It’s a matter of how dire the situation is assessed to be. We’ll need a lot more than four games to get our answer there.
Once that next swing is added, it will then be up to the new guy and Willis to seize the job. Hopefully once and for all.
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