How the Miami Dolphins are planning on getting better in 2025 while simultaneously losing star power in the secondary
The Miami Dolphins are currently engaged in a difficult juggling act. They’re trying to take steps forward to be a better unit on defense in 2025 while becoming less talented in the secondary. The long, winding path of Jalen Ramsey’s trade rumors has yet to come to completion, but it is a certainty that Ramsey […]
The Miami Dolphins are currently engaged in a difficult juggling act. They’re trying to take steps forward to be a better unit on defense in 2025 while becoming less talented in the secondary. The long, winding path of Jalen Ramsey’s trade rumors has yet to come to completion, but it is a certainty that Ramsey will not be back with the team this season.
Add in the free agent departure of a young safety in Jevon Holland, who once looked like one of the future stars of the position, and the Dolphins are a team that folks are understandably down on in the defensive backfield. Miami has shown intent on signing a veteran cornerback, so they should get a personnel bump before the start of the season to help offset the pending loss of Ramsey. But this team will have less star power on the back end than it did a year ago.
The Dolphins still think they can be better, regardless. Whether they’re right or not will depend on a few key variables.
The first is the health of the front seven, with the return of players like Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips, who introduce some of the best players on the entire roster back onto the field in 2025. Miami got a combined four appearances from those two in all of 2024, all from Phillips off of rehab from a November 2023 Achilles tear. Chubb and Phillips are major upgrades over the likes of Emmanuel Ogbah and Tyus Bowser, and Miami should feel good about how that upgrade can impact the game.
But Dolphins linebacker Tyrel Dodson touched on the other big bet that Miami is placing to see a less talented group play better in 2025. Chemistry.
“You know, it's like a relationship when a person doesn't hear your voice a lot, and then you try to correct them, they're gonna naturally just disagree with you. But when you have that dialog with each other…the tone and the voice (are) more familiar, where you're willing to take criticism, you're willing to take more information. So that's like, that's what we've been building,” said Dodson on Tuesday during his media availability with the press.
Hearing this input from Dodson is an indictment of last year's group, who apparently struggled with too many new voices trying to impress input on one another. Miami was rumored to have a player-led intervention early in the season about communication and how to receive it last season, an incident that Dodson was ironically not yet in the building for. Based on Dodson's comments, things didn't completely smooth over throughout the rest of the year.
Dodson is, like most of the Dolphins organization right now, saying all of the right things. He is in a unique position to reflect on Miami’s standing as a team, given that he started the year in Seattle in 2024 before being claimed by the Dolphins mid-year. It didn’t take Dodson long to claim the starting role opposite Jordyn Brooks, and it should be a promising development for Miami to see Dodson, with his attitude and approach to accountability, taking on a prominent voice within Miami’s defensive group.
He certainly had some indirect thoughts about some of the Dolphins’ outgoing talent, too. When asked about how the defense has grown from when he first got here to now, Dodson didn’t talk about familiarity with the scheme or more exotic coverage rotations. He talked about, you guessed it, chemistry.
“I just think…we're just been moving as one. We don't care what people say. We don't care if we don't have ‘who’ and ‘who’ and ‘who’, we're here to work. And no matter if you're a third-string first-string, fifth-string, undrafted, first-round — if you're out there, I'm expecting, (Anthony Weaver’s) expecting, Joe (Barry)'s expecting you to make plays. No matter who you are, you just gotta be accountable, and you gotta come ready to play.”
For a football team that appeared from afar to have too many individuals and not enough of what Dodson is talking about, it’s nice to hear. But it will only work for Miami if this team doesn’t just walk the walk but talks the talk all season long. Even then, the bets the Dolphins are placing on personnel may not be enough. But it’s a good start — and perhaps their only way out from the pressure cooker this team is perceived to be in for the upcoming 2025 season.
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