After the Dolphins lost 28-6 to the Ravens last Thursday, there was speculation that the team could fire head coach Mike McDaniel but they wound up making a different move.
They parted ways with General Manager Chris Grier after he spent more than two decades in the organization. During a Monday press conference, McDaniel said Dolphins owner Stephen Ross told him directly of the move on Friday and McDaniel acknowledged it impacted him personally while saying it will not impact the way he does his job.
“I prioritize the idea of not spending any time thinking of things that could happen from that standpoint,” McDaniel said. “I took the information as he delivered it. For me, personally, Chris is a guy I’ve worked with every day since I’ve been here. I’m a human being. Whether it’s football or life things, that’s an emotional toll when you realize that things are going to be different. Having said that, none of my job and what people depend on me for has anything to do with any of my feelings. It is irrelevant.”
The Dolphins made another change on Monday by agreeing to trade edge rusher Jaelan Phillips to the Eagles. That move and any others that could come before Tuesday’s deadline will have an impact on how McDaniel does his job for the rest of the season and his ability to handle the shifts will play into whether he’ll be back for a fifth season in Miami.
The Eagles have landed a pass rusher.
According to multiple reports, the Eagles have agreed to trade a 2026 third-round pick to the Dolphins in exchange for edge rusher Jaelan Phillips.
Word of the Eagles’ interest in Phillips surfaced over the weekend. Phillips played for Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio when Fangio had the same job in Miami during the 2023 season.
The Eagles will be sending their third-round pick to the Dolphins. They still hold the Jets’ 2026 third-rounder as a result of last year’s Haason Reddick trade.
Phillips had 15.5 sacks in his first two seasons and 6.5 sacks before tearing his Achilles against the Jets on Black Friday in 2023. He returned to play four games last season, but missed the rest of the year with a torn ACL. He has three sacks this season.
The Eagles have also acquired cornerbacks Jaire Alexander and Michael Carter in trades over the last few days. They have until Tuesday afternoon to make any other deals to bolster their bid for another Super Bowl run.
The Dolphins could also make more trades, although they are looking at rebuilding their roster rather than making any kind of run in 2025.
Thursday night’s Ravens-Dolphins game included a controversial tripping penalty that wiped out a huge Miami gain.
With the game still competitive (the Ravens led, 14-3, early in the second quarter) a 36-yard completion to receiver Jaylen Waddle that would have put the Dolphins at the Baltimore seven became a 15-yard penalty and, eventually, a punt.
Running back Ollie Gordon II slipped and fell. Ravens linebacker Mike Green tripped over Gordon. Prime Video rules analyst Terry McAulay immediately explained that it was “an incorrect call.”
Appearing Sunday on NFL Network, NFL rules analyst and club communication liaison Walt Anderson addressed the situation.
“What was called on the field was a low block that was a trip, using the leg to obstruct or block the opponent,” Anderson said. “And on this play, when Ollie, it almost looks like he slips and he goes down, there’s a flag on the ground by the umpire for tripping. What replay can do is they’re allowed to take a look, and if there was no contact with Ollie Gordon’s leg, then replay could have picked the flag up. But his upper right thigh did touch the leg of the defender, and that’s why replay could not pick this flag up.”
It’s all about where the trip happened on Gordon’s leg. Anderson later said that, if Green had tripped over Gordon’s hip, the replay process could have picked up the flag. Since it was the thigh, the ruling — albeit incorrect — stood.
The outcome is another example of the convoluted stew of bad calls that can, and can’t, be fixed by replay. And the outcome here is ridiculous. Gordon wasn’t tripping Green. Gordon slipped and fell, and Green tripped over him. The fact that replay could have fixed it only if Green had tripped higher on Gordon’s body shows how bizarre the current hair-splitting has become.
Over the past 20 years, the NFL has gradually embraced greater and greater ways to use video to fix the mistakes made by officials who are in the fray, trying to spot flashes and blurs in real time with the naked eye, all while trying not to be trampled by gladiators in helmets and full pads.
The fear of doing too much with replay has resulted in a failure to do enough. The sooner the NFL marries replay technology with common sense, the sooner the league will begin quieting the non-stop suspicion (thanks to legalized, normalized, and heavily monetized gambling) that “normal incidents of the game” are the result of abnormal motivations fueled by wagering.
As the last call for Sunday Splash! reports before the trade deadline arrives, many are planting flags on possible trades to be made by the Dolphins. And while interim G.M. Champ Kelly may be trying to make the kind of moves that will give him a chance at the permanent job (as one source put it last night, Kelly currently has “no chance” at the post-2025 gig), Kelly doesn’t have the keys to the car.
Any decisions regarding trades will be approved, or not, by owner Stephen Ross.
The bigger the name, the more closely Ross will look at the deal. As to receiver Jaylen Waddle, that absolutely would be a trade ultimately made by Ross, not by Kelly.
Waddle’s contract, as the receiver market goes, is very favorable at $28.5 million per year. He’s one of the few great players the Dolphins have. A building block for the next regime.
And he’s good enough to fetch a significant haul if/when the next regime convinces Ross to move on. With any draft picks secured by Tuesday no different from the draft picks that would be secured in a postseason move, there’s no reason to rush it.
Unless, of course, Ross really is trying to tank the 2025 season.
The Dolphins will have a new General Manager by 2026. They likely will have a new head coach. Whether they have a new quarterback is a $54 million question.
That’s the amount Tua Tagovailoa is owed next season, fully guaranteed. They don’t have to play him. They will have to pay him.
Assuming a new coach would want a new quarterback, having Tua under contract for 2026 could make the Miami job less attractive to candidates with options. (Other factors inherent to the organization could make quality candidates think twice, too.) Unless, of course, the Dolphins manage to earn the first pick and the ability to hand pick a rookie who would replace Tua by 2027, if not sooner.
However it plays out, Tua’s contract includes a $54 million ball-and-chain for 2026. And it was an avoidable situation. They gave him $150 million fully guaranteed over three years when they did not have to. Who were they competing against, other than common sense?
It’s one of the biggest reasons Chris Grier is gone. It’s one of the biggest reasons Mike McDaniel will be following.
Unless, of course, the organization decides to keep Tua in 2026 and concludes that it’s better to have him coached by McDaniel.
That seems unlikely. With the Dolphins, however, you never know what they’ll do. And that’s not the good kind of unpredictable.
