INDIANAPOLIS — Miami Dolphins coach Jeff Hafley and general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan offered some foundational thoughts on what they think the coming football season should look like in the first year of a rebuild under the new tandem.
“I think it’s going to be more about the process than anything else,” Hafley said from his podium at Indiana Convention Center for the NFL scouting combine on Tuesday. “Building the foundation the way we want, the play style we want. Putting these guys together like we want. To me, that will be the first success. That will start in (organized team activities) on April 6.
“Ive had a chance to meet a bunch of these guys already, and what will be exciting will be getting them together, going through free agency, going through the draft and then just trying to bring them together and build a culture of what we want it to be. And I think that will be the beginning to having some success.”
Sullivan has previously mentioned that he wants to build a roster suitable to handle traveling to cold-weather environments. Would that mean sacrificing speed, as the roster was previously constructed with former GM Chris Grier and coach Mike McDaniel together, for physicality and toughness?
“It’s so cliche in our business: We want big, fast, strong, athletic,” Sullivan said. “Look, the simplest way to say it is, I want good football players. And that comes in a lot of different sizes, shapes, packages.
“Yeah, we want to be big and physical up front. There’s no doubt about that. But we want to be fast and athletic on the perimeter, offensively and defensively. We want to give the coordinator on offense the flexibility to call the game where we can do a lot of different things and attack all three levels of the field. We don’t want to have to put ourselves in a box where we can only win one way. At the end of the day, I want good football players: Big, tough, physical up front, but we want to be fast on the perimeter.
“We’re not out there looking for slow guys. There’s more to the game than speed. I mean, if that was the case, we’d just go to a track meet, bring all those guys through the door in the draft. We’re hiring these guys to play football, not be fast in a straight line. So there’s different components to that.”
The duo understands the challenge in front with a number of holes on the roster and limited resources in terms of cap space.
“Anytime you have 30 free agents, there’s going to be needs across the board,” Hafley said. “It’s get the best players we can, with the right mindset who are great people, and we got to develop them and coach them. That’s just going to be the key to this whole entire thing.”
But don’t expect Hafley to feel content with sacrificing winning at the start.
“At the end of the day, I’m competitive,” he said. “I want to win in everything we do, so I’m not just going to go in and say it’s a success because we played hard. I want to win.”
Hafley’s defense
The Green Bay Packers last year, with Hafley as defensive coordinator, used more four-man defensive lines than most teams.
He revealed how he expects it to run formationally in Miami.
“I think having variation is so important,” Hafley said. “I mean, you might say we’re going to be a 4-3 defense, which we’ll based out of 4-3, but I’d like to get in the 4-3 structures and 3-4 structures all out of the same personnel grouping.
“I think front variation is huge and having the ability to be multiple. At the same time, I think it’s really important to find out who we end up with on this roster and figure out what we do best, and then it will be my job to put that scheme in place. I have a lot of good ideas.”
In previous seasons under both McDaniel and Brian Flores, the Dolphins were a base 3-4, rarely using hand-in-the-ground defensive ends and more so using stand-up outside linebackers as the edge rushers. Being based on 4-3 fronts may require a shift in the type of edge rushers brought in.
Hafley said he had to go back and forth with Packers due to personnel to start, a trade for star edge rusher Micah Parsons and, later, some injuries.
Sullivan said he just looks at edge defenders as opposed to differentiating them by 4-3 or 3-4 schemes. Hafley said he likes either one.
It’ll help that Miami doesn’t have many players under contract on the edge in 2026 aside from third-year player Chop Robinson, so it will be a fresh start for the duo.
“The edge rusher position right now, we need to fill that room up,” Hafley said. “There’s not many left on the roster right now.”
Said Sullivan of Robinson: “Chop’s in a great position because he’s going to be the elder statesman and in a position of leadership. Expectations for him are to work his ass off, continue to improve, and be a leader in that locker room.”