The Miami Dolphins are sitting at a brutal 0-5 record right now, and their starting quarterback, Malik Willis, is really struggling. Despite the rough start to the season, head coach Jeff Hafley declared Monday that he is absolutely not considering a quarterback change as the team heads into their bye week. “We’ve played five games, and Malik is our quarterback,” Hafley told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Willis’ Woes Are Piling Up Fast
Man, it’s been a tough run for Willis and the Dolphins offense. They just dropped to 0-5 after a 31-24 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. Willis’ stat line from that game wasn’t pretty: 15-of-27 for just 137 yards, with one touchdown but also two interceptions. Looking at his season numbers, it gets even grimmer. Willis has only thrown for 849 yards total, with a measly two touchdowns against four interceptions. His 56.2% completion percentage is better than only two other quarterbacks who’ve actually played meaningful snaps this season. And if that wasn’t enough, his quarterback rating sits at a chilling 43.9, putting him at 23rd in the entire NFL.
But here’s the kicker, the one that really makes you cringe: ball security. Willis has fumbled five times this season. Five! And get this, he’s fumbled in each of his past three games. Coach Hafley didn’t hold back on that front, telling ESPN, “We got to look hard at it during the bye week. We talk about ball security all the time and we work on it and we’ve got to do a better job of putting him in those situations and he’s got to have the awareness to protect the ball as well. We’ll take a hard look at fixing that because we’re not going to win games if we’re fumbling the ball like that.” You can almost hear the frustration in his voice, right?
Hafley’s Stance: It’s a Team Effort (But Willis Needs to Be Better)
Even with Kyle McCord waiting in the wings as backup, benching Willis isn’t on the table for Hafley, at least not yet. The coach is trying to spread the blame, which you gotta respect, but he’s also making it clear Willis needs to step up. “Malik needs to be better, OK? And that’s not the headline,” Hafley said. “The headline is we all need to be better, and I mean that.” He pointed out that they ran the ball really well for the first time against the Bengals, racking up 200 yards, but the pass game? That’s where everyone needs to fix it.
“Everything in the pass game has to be better, right?” Hafley continued. “It’s the receivers, it’s the tight ends, it’s the protection. It all has to tie in, and it all has to be better. And that’s the quarterback, that’s the coaches, that’s the offensive line, that’s the running backs, that’s the tight ends. This is a team game that we all need to be more efficient, and we need to be better.” He’s still got confidence, saying, “I have confidence in the coaches, I have confidence in the players that we have. We will work through that and we will get better. It’s been five weeks.” Five weeks, zero wins. That’s a tough pill to swallow.
The Dolphins now have two weeks to regroup during their bye. They’ll need every minute of it to figure things out before they hit the road to face the New York Jets on October 25. If they want to salvage anything from this season, that passing game, and especially Willis’ ball security, simply has to improve.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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