The Dolphins parted ways with General Manager Chris Grier on Friday and it appears they are taking a different approach to the trade deadline in the wake of that move.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that the Dolphins will consider offers for Waddle over the coming days. Per the report, teams had called about Waddle before Grier left the team and were told that they would not make a trade.
Waddle signed a three-year contract extension with the Dolphins last year that put him under contract through the 2028 season. He has a cap number of over $11.65 million for next season and cap numbers north of $33 million in the final two years of the deal.
Waddle has 41 catches for 586 yards and four touchdowns this season. Teams interested in adding that kind of production will likely be calling interim G.M. Champ Kelly quite often ahead of Tuesday’s deadline.
The Dolphins installed an interim General Manager on Friday. And Champ Kelly has plenty of work to do.
The trade deadline arrives on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. ET. And it’s believed that most of the current roster is available.
As one source put it, if Kelly is going to have any chance at the permanent job, he’ll need to make a big splash. Turn contracts that will either not be extended or will be terminated into draft picks. Dump salary. Create future cap space. Target practice-squad guys who can come in and be competitive.
Of course, it remains to be seen how competitive the Dolphins want to be. Owner Stephen Ross allegedly offered former head coach Brian Flores $100,000 in 2019 for each additional loss the team absorbed. (Ross said he was joking. Good one?)
So maybe Kelly placates Ross by gutting the roster and greasing the skids for a continuation of the 2025 free fall.
Regardless, multiple Dolphins players are in play. One guy to watch, we’re told, is safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, who was traded from Miami to the Steelers in 2019 and who was traded back to the Dolphins before the season.
Pass rushers Jaelan Phillips, Bradley Chubb, and Matt Judon know they could go, too. Receiver Jaylen Waddle also has been mentioned as a potential trade possibility.
Kelly has three days to do any deals he’s considering. And with 13 games still to be played in Week 9, the inevitable possibility of injuries could create and/or heighten demand for the various available Dolphins players.
Dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things. It should be no surprise, then, that the dysfunctional Dolphins did something dysfunctional on Friday.
Owner Stephen Ross fired (sorry, “mutually parted ways with”) long-time G.M. Chris Grier. Ross made no other changes.
The Dolphins simultaneously got the word out that coach Mike McDaniel will finish the season. (Which could be viewed as an even worse punishment than being mutually parted ways. With.)
McDaniel is now an obvious lame duck, barring the kind of miracle that persuades Ross to keep him for 2026. Even then, Ross will have a mismatched G.M. and head coach, with the new G.M. waiting for the opportunity to hire his own head coach.
Every future G.M. scouts players and coaches. Every G.M. has a list of coaches with whom the G.M. wants to work. And so, if McDaniel survives, he’ll enter 2026 on the hot seat, as the new G.M. bides his time for the right time to move on from McDaniel and to install one of the coaches the new G.M. has earmarked for eventual hire.
And if Ross lets the new G.M. make the decision on McDaniel, when will that happen? Even if it takes only two weeks after the season ends to install a new G.M., the Dolphins will be two weeks behind everyone else who is looking for a head coach in a cycle that starts spinning in little more than two months.
Ross felt compelled to do something after Thursday night’s embarrassing home loss to the Ravens. He opted for a half measure.
The reasons are his and his alone. Maybe he has no faith in any of the potential interim candidates. Maybe he wants to let nature take its course, so that the Dolphins will earn the highest possible draft position in all seven rounds.
Regardless, the properly functioning teams that currently aren’t functioning at a satisfactory level don’t fire either the coach or the G.M. They clean house and start over.
Dolphins rookie running back Ollie Gordon suffered an ankle injury during Thursday night’s loss to the Ravens, but it shouldn’t keep him sidelined for long.
Per Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, Gordon is considered day-to-day.
He’s set to miss limited time — if he misses any additional time at all. He had to exit Thursday’s contest in the first half.
Gordon, 21, has rushed for 122 yards on 40 carries with a touchdown. He’s also caught six passes for 30 yards with a TD.
The Dolphins parted ways with General Manager Chris Grier on Friday morning, but they are not making another change at head coach right now.
Mike McDaniel met with reporters at a press conference before news of Grier’s departure went public and Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that McDaniel will remain the team’s coach through at least the end of the regular season. McDaniel is in his fourth season with the Dolphins and he signed a contract extension in 2024 that keeps him tied to the team through the 2028 season.
The change in General Managers will make it less likely that McDaniel remains with the team through the end of that pact. It’s not unheard of for a team to keep a coach while hiring a new G.M., but the firing of Brian Callahan in Tennessee earlier this season is the latest in a long list of examples of how well that approach has generally worked out.
Thursday night’s loss to the Ravens dropped McDaniel’s record to 30-30 in the regular season. The Dolphins have also lost both playoff games they’ve played with McDaniel on the sideline.
