Clearly, I am not alone in this. One of the teams that will be the most fascinating to watch this upcoming NFL season will be the Miami Dolphins. They need to win now, but do they have the roster for it? I am dubious that they will make the AFC playoffs and win their first postseason game since the time chads hung off Floridian ballots, as opposed to stroking their soul patches down in South Beach.
Over the weekend, Mike Freeman wrote about his thoughts on Tua Tagovailoa for USA TODAY Sports. He may view Tagovailoa a bit more optimistically than I do, but he is also of the belief that at some point, highly-compensated quarterbacks like Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert actually have to do something in the NFL. For me, any time doubt creeps in with a quarterback, it is never a good thing.
This is why I tabbed former Texas Longhorns star quarterback Quinn Ewers as my late-round pick to click for the Dolphins. It was a very obvious inclusion. He was way too productive and talented to be a seventh-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. The fact that only an injury-prone Tagovailoa and a former first-round bust in Zach Wilson are ahead of him on the Dolphins' depth chart says all I need to know.
Of course, Ewers will have to earn his keep, but he actually went to the very best situation for himself.
Quinn Ewers has such a tremendous opportunity to take advantage of
Let me put it to you this way. There may not be a head coach who is sitting on a hotter seat right now in the AFC than Mike McDaniel. While I would argue in favor of him keeping his job because he has brought some level of stability to a perpetually chaotic situation down in Miami, these are the Dolphins. If the team fails to reach the playoffs, I expect he and general manager Chris Grier would both be gone.
As far as what that means for Tagovailoa, Wilson, Ewers and the rest of the Miami quarterbacking room, it only opens up uncertainty. The Tagovailoa contract is right up there with one of the worst in football. He is untradeable. Who is honestly going to want to take on Tagovailoa's health record? Regardless, this all does present an opportunity for Ewers to show us why he was a five-star recruit.
Overall, I look at Ewers not only having a good chance to make this team out of fall camp, but to potentially start games this year. Truth be told, it may only be a handful, but those opportunities could present themselves, especially if the season is lost long before it is officially over. No matter who is coaching the Dolphins in 2026, I have a feeling they will be intrigued by the awesome talent of Ewers.
In a perfect world, he would have been drafted far sooner, but must to make the most of it in Miami.