MIAMI GARDENS — While the Miami Dolphins went into the 2025 season with the intention of winning, it was known it would be a greater challenge than other recent seasons with the offseason’s youth movement on the roster.
Whether the Dolphins were winning or not — and they’re not, entering Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Chargers at 1-4 — Miami needed to see some positive signs from its rookie class.
That hasn’t been the case as the Dolphins’ first- and second-round picks from April’s draft, defensive tackle Kenneth Grant and left guard Jonah Savaiinaea, are struggling through their first five NFL games.
Pro Football Focus ranks Grant and Savaiinaea as the two lowest-graded rookies from the draft’s top two rounds. It grades Savaiinaea as the league’s worst qualifying offensive guard, while Grant is second-to-last among NFL interior defensive linemen.
No grand determinations on NFL players should be made off their first five NFL games, but after an offseason where the Dolphins lost a slew of established veterans and supplemented them with youngsters, a starting point for where a resurgence could come from is the two high-drafted rookies in the trenches.
“There’s an inherent assumption that there’s things that they’re going to have to work through,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said. “You have to improve in the heat and no one really cares about your problems. I think those two individuals, as human beings and competitors, they’re made of the right stuff. Within that, there’s a belief in those guys that they’ll get through to the other side and feel extremely happy about their play, but it’s going to be earned.”
For Grant, the 6-foot-3, 335-pound No. 13 pick out of Michigan, defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver has seen him playing more free this past week.
“If we go off (Wednesday’s) practice,” Weaver said Thursday, “I think maybe we finally said something that hit, because it looked like he was just going out there playing free and not putting that pressure on himself when he has a little mistake and letting that compound throughout the game. And we felt a little bit of that.”
What led to that for Grant?
“Just (simplifying) things down for me, just letting me roll off the ball and cause disruption like I was doing in college,” Grant said. “The main thing is he wants me to roll off the ball and not think and just go.”
For a defensive tackle, sometimes overthinking, with more thrown at him in a professional setting, can slow him down.
“Just trying to guess the blocks you’re trying to play, guessing what types of runs they’re going to run, backfield sets and what they’re going to do here — and they do the other thing. You’re just like, the technique is bad (in those moments),” Grant explained.
Savaiinaea, whom Miami traded up in the second round to select, found his success at Arizona on the right side of the line before switching to left guard with the Dolphins.
He doesn’t see that as a viable reason for his play.
“No, there’s no excuses of what’s been happening on the field,” Savaiinaea said. “This season, I had time over OTAs, training camp to work on it. … It’s fixable. That’s why we have these days to prep on it and just got to emphasize it.”
Dolphins coaches view Savaiinaea as having the most long-term potential on the left side as opposed to what could’ve brought him short-term success playing where he’s comfortable.
“I don’t necessarily know if that’s the easiest solution,” offensive coordinator Frank Smith said. “I think it’s always just, when you’re a rookie, there’s a process to it and everyone wants it to be perfect and ready to go. One thing is that he’s very aware. He’s confident in how he’s going to play and he’s working to improve.”
Veterans on both sides of the ball are constantly communicating with the rookies.
“You’ve just got to continue to have conversations with him,” quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said of Savaiinaea. “It’s also not overanalyzing what he has to do, but also making sure that if that’s what works for him, does that also work for the rest of the guys? If not, then we’ve got to kind of come up with a game plan with that in getting all of our guys in a groove together.”
Said linebacker Jordyn Brooks of what he might tell Grant or fellow rookie defensive tackle Jordan Phillips: “Just keep going. Those guys are babies right now playing NFL football, so it takes time to grow. I remember when I was a rookie. All you got to do is encourage. Keep encouraging. Let those guys get their confidence, start playing the ball they know they can play.”
Grant and Savaiinaea have maintained their confidence through the struggle.
“It’s up there,” Savaiinaea said. “Obviously, I’m trying to find my technique as days go on.”
Said Grant: “Obviously, I haven’t played to my standard I want to play to, but it’s a next-day mentality. I got to bring it every day. I can fix it the next day.”
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