The Miami Dolphins are a bad football team. I don't just mean that in a "yeah, they suck" way. I mean that, top to bottom, this is an atrocious roster, a crime against humanity. The winless Dolphins don't even have many players they can trade for draft picks at this point as they look to the future, because no one's going to want most of these guys.
Assuming the team isn't ready to give up on their best draft asset, edge rusher Chop Robinson, there are four other players who the team needs to move on from, even if all they get is a sixth-round pick in exchange for the player and a seventh.
WR Jalen Tolbert
Miami entered this season with the league's worst wide receiver room, with Jalen Tolbert expected to play a large role for the team after coming over from Dallas, where he had often looked to be on the verge of becoming a solid NFL wide receiver. Surely he'd be able to succeed on a roster where he was arguably the most talented wide receiver, right?
Well, no. Tolbert was a healthy scratch in both Week 1 and Week 2. He's played in the three games since then, but has just one reception all season. Malik Washington has been the No. 1 option, while rookies Chris Bell and Caleb Douglas have shown some upside as well. Tolbert, meanwhile, has played 33 total snaps; Washington has more targets than Tolbert has snaps.
Will a team want to trade for Tolbert? That's the question not just for him but for any player that Miami might be looking to deal, but for a late pick swap? Sure, there's probably a team out there that could use a depth guy with at least some history of production, even if his 2026 campaign has been a major disappointment.
EDGE Josh Uche
Joshua Uche is not the same guy who recorded 11.5 sacks with the Patriots back in 2022, but there's still some upside for him as a rotational pass rusher. Through five games this season, Uche has a sack, a forced fumble and 20 tackles. He's easily on track to finish with the most tackles of his career, even if his sack numbers are unlikely to reach double digits for the first time.
Uche is grading out really well so far. PFF has him 34th in overall grade among 106 qualifying edge rushers, and there are a number of teams that could be improved by getting Uche on the roster. The Dolphins would be worse without him, but it would also give the team a chance to try out other players. Uche has played more snaps than any other Dolphins edge rusher, and it'd be good to, for example, get Chop Robinson more snaps with him gone.
The Dolphins know what this team is. Veterans on expiring deals who won't be back anyway in 2027 don't need to be taking up roster spots on a team that has the rare chance to completely tear things down in a way that bad teams don't usually have the luxury to do. Miami can tank to levels that we didn't think possible, and an Uche trade might net them a better pick than basically any other realistic trade.
LB Willie Gay Jr.
One spot where the Dolphins actually have things figured out is linebacker. Rookie Jacob Rodriguez has played 98.7 percent of the team's snaps and looks like a future building block for this team, while Jordyn Brooks was an All-Pro last season and continues to be the team's best defender.
What that means is that the Dolphins can deal veteran linebacker Willie Gay without it impacting the linebacker unit too much. It impacts it some, as he's played the third-most snaps of any Dolphins linebacker, but with Rodriguez and Brooks both playing 90 percent or more of snaps, Gay's 50 percent snap share can be replaced by getting Jackson Woodard or Liam Anderson on the field more.
Gay hasn't stood out too much on the stat sheet this season, but he's already closing in on his 2025 tackle total, and he still has the speed to be a good contributor in run defense. Gay's not going to add anything as a pass rusher, but if a team wants to add a cheap rotational linebacker for early downs, there are far worse options.
S Zayne Anderson
It says everything about the state of the Dolphins secondary that Zayne Anderson is the team's highest-paid safety, making a whopping $1.3 million dollars this season. The 29-year-old joined the team this season on a one-year deal after spending the past two seasons in Green Bay, and he's been...a guy in Miami.
But digging into some things, there might be something here with Anderson that would make a team with safety needs have some interest in him. For example, Anderson ranks 30th among safeties in PFF grade. He's only allowed two receptions all season and ranks first among safeties in yards allowed per reception.
Can Miami get much for Anderson? Probably not. The team more than likely is looking at a conditional pick for him, but there's a chance he plays well enough in his landing spot that those conditions end up being met. And hey, maybe you get a couple of teams interested and you're able to get mid-seventh for him, which is better than nothing when you're as bad as Miami is.
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