Every NFL team's fanbase wants their team to swing big when they get a sniff of success.
Sometimes, that ends up like the Miami Dolphins in 2025.
The Dolphins were seemingly a team on the rise and it wasn't that long ago. Tua Tagovailoa emerged as a good quarterback once he had a coach in Mike McDaniel who supported him and didn't tear him down. They paid a lot to land Tyreek Hill, but Hill had a pair of 1,700-yard seasons to start his Dolphins career. The Dolphins made the playoffs in 2022 and then traded for cornerback Jalen Ramsey. They've given him two big contract extensions since. Hill signed a massive extension upon his trade from the Kansas City Chiefs and signed another big restructured deal last year.
And for all of that, the Dolphins still have the longest drought between playoff wins in the NFL. It has been 24 years since the Dolphins won a playoff game. And now the Dolphins might be blowing things up again.
General manager Chris Grier confirmed reports Tuesday that the Dolphins and Ramsey have mutually agreed to explore trade options. It seems to be more than a star player looking to move on and a team trying to get its salary cap in order. It seems like the end of an era for the Dolphins, if it can even be considered an "era" at all.
Dolphins have tough decisions
Ramsey's contract is one reason he's on the block. An acquiring team would take on $21.1 million guaranteed for this year, according to Spotrac. The Dolphins signed Ramsey to a restructured three-year, $55 million deal after trading for him in 2023, a three-year $72.3 million contract extension last year and now might be moving on.
The return on any investment the Dolphins have made lately is far from ideal. Tua Tagovailoa is one year into a four-year, $212.4 million extension and the Dolphins are coming off another season in which the biggest question is Tagovailoa's health. Hill is coming off a season in which he dropped from 1,799 yards to 959. Even if a wrist injury is to blame, Hill didn't look like the same player at age 30. And there has been noise since the season ended and Hill complained that he wants out. The Dolphins might need to explore that too, though Grier said on Tuesday that moving Hill isn't something the team is pursuing.
The Dolphins went from having endless hope for the future to looking at a real possibility of blowing it all up and starting again. That's devastating for a team whose last playoff win came before Tom Brady's first NFL start.
What comes next for the Dolphins?
The Dolphins' errors kept compounding. They had good drafts from 2018-2021 to build the core that made the playoffs, and from 2022 on they've drafted one player (De'Von Achane) who was a regular starter last season. Edge rusher Chop Robinson, last year's first-round pick, had a promising rookie season and could be a hit, but the diminished draft capital from those high-profile trades meant the Dolphins had to nail the middle rounds of the past few drafts. They haven't.
Meanwhile, there are questions about the Dolphins' culture after McDaniel said players would show up late to meetings and were fined multiple times for it. There is some bad luck involved with the Dolphins taking a rapid step backwards after some progress, with injuries and particularly Tagovailoa's concussion issues. But suddenly Miami appears to have retreated close to square one.
Ramsey seems good as gone, though we've seen similar situations change quickly. The Dolphins have to figure out what to do with Hill. Even Tagovailoa's future is uncertain if he can't stay healthy. McDaniel has to be on thin ice after last season's collapse. The same goes for Grier.
It all changed so fast. You don't hear much about NFL teams who take their shot and miss. Here's what happens to them: They end up like the Dolphins, trying to figure out how they came up short. What's left if finding a path back to where they were just a couple years ago.