Top 10 priorities for the Dolphins ahead of the 2025 season
The Miami Dolphins face an urgent offseason as they prepare for the 2025 season, focusing heavily on addressing weaknesses in the trenches, revamping key roster positions and rebuilding team culture.
Take a look at the recent coverage.
The summary above was drafted with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists in our News division. All stories below were reported, written and edited by McClatchy journalists.
Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel looks on from the sideline as his team plays against the New York Jets in the first half of their NFL game at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. By MATIAS J. OCNER
NO. 1: ROSS KEEPS MCDANIEL, GRIER BUT TIME FOR HIM TO DEMAND MORE. AND MORE CONCLUSIONS, REACTION
Dolphins' Ross cannot be as patient. Six things that must happen now. | Published January 6, 2025 | Read Full Story by Barry Jackson
Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill (10) signals at the line of scrimmage during the second half of an NFL Football game against the Cleveland Browns at Huntington Bank Field in Cleveland, Ohio on Sunday, December 29, 2024. By PHOTO BY AL DIAZ
NO. 2: HOW THE MIAMI DOLPHINS PLAN TO FIX RELATIONSHIP WITH TYREEK HILL
How the Miami Dolphins plan to address Tyreek Hill's plea to leave. | Published January 7, 2025 | Read Full Story by Omar Kelly
El gerente general de los Miami Dolphins, Chris Grier, a la izquierda, y el entrenador en jefe, Mike McDaniel, a la derecha, responden preguntas durante una conferencia de prensa en las instalaciones de entrenamiento del equipo de fútbol de la NFL, el lunes 16 de enero de 2023 en Miami Gardens, Florida. By Lynne Sladky
NO. 3: DOLPHINS EYEING FREE AGENT OFFENSIVE LINEMEN, PREPARED TO DOUBLE DOWN ON BIG NEED
Dolphins say they're prepared to upgrade their offensive line. | Published February 25, 2025 | Read Full Story by Barry Jackson
Miami Dolphins general manager Chris Grier and head coach Mike McDaniels attend the game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks in Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals at the Kaseya Center in Miami on Saturday, May 6, 2023. By Al Diaz
NO. 4: WHERE DOLPHINS ROSTER AND DEPTH CHART STAND AT EVERY POSITION AND HOW TO FILL NEEDS
A look at Miami Dolphins depth chart at every position a week into free agency. | Published March 17, 2025 | Read Full Story by Barry Jackson
Dec 29, 2024; Jacksonville, Florida, USA; Tennessee Titans wide receiver Nick Westbrook-Ikhine (15) celebrates a touchdown in the third quarter against the Jacksonville Jaguars at EverBank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeremy Reper-Imagn Images
NO. 5: WESTBROOK-IKHINE ON MCDANIEL MEETING AND WHAT HE BRINGS. AND DOLPHINS NEWCOMER NOTES
Notes on new Dolphins receiver Nick Westbrook-Ikhine and several other new players | Published March 24, 2025 | Read Full Story by Barry Jackson
Jan 30, 2025; Mobile, AL, USA; National team defensive lineman Aeneas Peebles of Virginia Tech (16) battles National team offensive lineman Grey Zabel of North Dakota State (77) during Senior Bowl practice for the National team at Hancock Whitney Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Vasha Hunt-Imagn Images
NO. 6: THE MIAMI DOLPHINS MEET WITH SOME OF THE TOP OFFENSIVE LINEMEN AT THE NFL COMBINE
'He's got a great outlook on life,' Grey Zabel said of coach Mike McDaniel. 'Happy-go-lucky type of guy. Loved being able to finally meet him.' | Published March 1, 2025 | Read Full Story by C. Isaiah Smalls II
Jan 5, 2025; Inglewood, California, USA; Los Angeles Rams Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo runs down the field for an attempted throw in Week 18 versus the Seattle Seahawks at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: William Navarro-Imagn Images
NO. 7: KELLY: AN IDEAL FREE AGENT PLAN TO SAVE THE MIAMI DOLPHINS | OPINION
Dolphins need to beef up the trenches in free agency, and should start on defense. | Published March 7, 2025 | Read Full Story by Omar Kelly
Miami Dolphins defensive end Matt Dickerson (98) shakes hands with New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers (8) after their NFL game at the MetLife Stadium on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. By MATIAS J. OCNER
NO. 8: DOLPHINS RE-SIGN JOURNEYMAN DEFENSIVE LINEMAN
Miami Dolphins re-signed journeyman defensive lineman Matt Dickerson | Published March 10, 2025 | Read Full Story by Omar Kelly
South Carolina defensive back Nick Emmanwori (21) pulls down an interception during the first half of the Gamecocks' game at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia on Saturday, November 18, 2023. By Sam Wolfe
NO. 9: HOW DOLPHINS' PATH HAS BECOME NARROWER. AND OPTION FOR PICK 13 ASKED TO VISIT TEAM OFFICES
Dolphins have a more narrow path to achieve their goals. A top prospect is lined up for a visit. And more. | Published March 18, 2025 | Read Full Story by Barry Jackson
Miami Dolphins offensive tackle Terron Armstead (72) high five teammate Patrick Paul (52) after a play in the second half of their NFL game against the New England Patriots at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, in Miami Gardens, Fla By David Santiago
NO. 10: KELLY: DOLPHINS REMAIN SOFT IN THE TRENCHES, AND SEEMINGLY DON'T CARE | OPINION
If Terron Armstead and Calais Campbell don't return, Miami's two most troublesome areas will become a crisis-level concern. | Published March 18, 2025 | Read Full Story by Omar Kelly
This report was produced with the help of AI tools, which summarized previous stories reported and written by McClatchy journalists. It was edited by journalists in our News division.
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Miami Herald
3 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Wellington, ‘the horse capital of the world': Inside South Florida's most exclusive sport
The Miami Dolphins and Florida Panthers might dominate headlines across the Sunshine State — but in Wellington, it's the horses that steal the spotlight. From November through April, Wellington International — just 65 miles north of Miami — becomes the epicenter of global equestrian sport. At its heart lies the world-renowned Winter Equestrian Festival, which runs from January through March. For riders, it's the Super Bowl. Grand Prix competitions like 'Saturday Night Lights' draw the sport's top athletes and horses. But this isn't just sport—it's South Florida's most exclusive arena. For those outside the equine community, it's a difficult athletic feat to understand. Riders navigate a course of jumps with precision and poise, but there's no scoreboard or final buzzer, making it harder to parse for spectators unfamiliar with the sport. 'Basketball or soccer, you want to put the ball in the basket or the goal,' 18-year-old junior rider Clara Propp told The Herald. 'For riding, it's harder to tell.' Propp is a three-time grand champion at the Junior Hunter Finals and the 2024 gold medalist in the Individual Junior Rider competition at the North American Youth Championships. She also documents her life as an equestrian to more than 64,000 followers on TikTok. The sport includes three main disciplines: equitation, hunters, and jumpers. Equitation focuses on the rider's form and technique. In hunter classes, the horse is judged on style and rhythm. Jumper classes, which are featured in the summer Olympic games, are fast-paced and judged on speed and accuracy: knock a rail or go over time, and you're out. 'The higher you go in the levels, the higher stakes it becomes,' she said. Working with a live animal, building a relationship with them, can be extremely dangerous if everything doesn't go according to plan. 'It's not just getting on and the horse does everything for you,' said 37-year-old pro Nick Haness, a celebrated hunter/jumper rider and owner of Hunterbrook Farms. Haness, recently named United States Equestrian Federation's 'Equestrian of the Year,' said the unpredictability of working with animals keeps riders humble. 'There's good days and bad. You can be at the top one minute and fall off the next.' All three disciplines, plus dressage and polo, are featured at the Winter Equestrian Festival, which Wellington International Marketing Director Alicia McLaughlin calls an 'unofficial training ground for the 2028 Olympics.' 'It's kind of what we consider the horse capital of the world,' Haness said. Top-level competitors flock to the Wellington circuit each winter season, enticed by the multi-million dollar facilities and the Florida sunshine. According to McLaughlin, it's one of the few times they can stay in one location and compete at a high level. But it's not only the elite. Wellington welcomes Olympic hopefuls, juniors balancing school, and even adult amateurs returning to the sport. 'There are very few horse shows where you're watching someone in the pony classes, and in 18 years, they're competing on an Olympic level,' said McLaughlin. One of those amateurs is 27-year-old Alex Aixala, a University of Miami grad who rediscovered the sport after college, competing on weekends while balancing a full-time job. 'It's a drug that never lets go of you,' he said. For riders like Aixala, the sacrifice is non-negotiable—but so is the price. The cost of doing business at the barn The sport demands grit, precision, and years of discipline. It's also a serious financial commitment. 'It can be a difficult sport to access,' Propp said. 'Money plays a big part in being at the top.' Entry fees, stabling, veterinary care, and even mane braiding rack up quickly. For just one horse in the winter circuit at Wellington – 'you're looking at around $60,000,' Haness said. And that's just the cost to show. In most sports, new equipment means plunking down on a new bat, stick, or pair of cleats. But in equestrian competition, the athlete is also a living, breathing partner, with instincts to train, moods to manage, and a price tag that can reach well into the six or seven figures. Joe Norick has built his professional career off of insuring these athletes, the equine ones that is. Leading the Equine, Farm & Ranch practice within the Private Client group at Alliant Insurance Services, Norick consistently works with 'ultra high net-worth individuals.' Most of his clients either buy or lease horses to compete on, and these are no county fair ponies. 'You're looking for a horse that's competitive,' Norick said. 'Some pay a million dollars to lease a horse at the pinnacle of competition.' That level of investment attracts some of the world's wealthiest, including the daughters of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who both keep horses in Wellington during the winter season. It's a bonus for other clients, allowing them to 'rub elbows with some of the world's most influential people,' per Norick. That price tag is only rising. According to Aixala, the cost of a competitive horse has soared since he first rode as a child — especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, when interest in the sport surged. 'It's a playground for the rich,' Haness added. 'If you're gonna buy an expensive horse, you're gonna go to Wellington.' But both Propp and Haness noted that not everyone gets their start that way — certainly not everyone can afford it. 'When I was younger, I used to put my saddle on the handlebars of my bike and ride around and ask people if I could catch ride for them,' Haness said. Catch riding — competing on horses you don't own or regularly train with— is one of the ways riders without deep pockets can break into the sport. Riders like Haness, now one of the most successful competitors in the country, built their early careers by offering time, labor, and skill in exchange for a chance to be seen in the ring. 'There are people who will let you ride their horses for free,' Propp added. 'They want the horse to qualify, sell it, or just keep it in shape.' Other working students will maintain stables or groom horses, paying their way for minutes in the ring. It's a side of the sport that exists just beyond the Hermès and Lugano shopping tents. There, private club members are taken to a premium viewing tent by 'designated VIP Golf Cart' in Rolex-sponsored Wellington International T-shirts that retail for $100 a piece. Beyond the showgrounds At any given time, more than 5,000 horses worth more than $500 million compete in Wellington. That kind of wealth doesn't just make for good athletic spectacle, it reshapes the local economy. According to Wellington International, the Winter Equestrian Festival generated more than $400 million in economic impact in 2024, plus a $54 million GDP growth from the circuit's visitors for Palm Beach County. That financial power has transformed Wellington's real estate market. The village has its own Equestrian Sotheby's office, and nearby homes often list in the seven figures. As of July 2025, the average home value was more than $650,000. A new 400-acre residential development by Wellington Lifestyle Partners will feature 250 high-end properties, equestrian villas, golf courses and a separate commercial project with boutique hotels and shopping. The project has drawn pushback, since part of the land came from Wellington's Equestrian Preserve. At council meetings last year that stretched over five hours, locals wore red 'horses not houses' shirts in protest. 'This is our Yellowstone,' said Maureen Brennan, owner of Aqua-TEC and a member of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce. 'As far as the preserve is defined in our village documents, I don't think it should be redefined by a developer.' Still, despite the growing pains, the beating heart of Wellington remains in the ring. For riders, the focus is less on development politics and more on the daily grind: early mornings in the barn or the thrill of clearing every jump, scoring a perfect round. 'It is so inspiring to be surrounded by a community of people who just love it so much,' Propp said. 'We love the sport — we believe in the partnership that we built with our animals.' And in Wellington, that devotion, whether built on fortune, labor, or sheer obsession, is always on full display.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Dave Hyde: Will Dolphins' big changes lead to results in regime's fourth year?
Culture is an easy word to talk about. It's not so easy to create, especially when you've flubbed it for three years as coach Mike McDaniel and general manager Chris Grier did in this Miami Dolphins era. So, they made some change in their fourth season that you typically see in an early-stage rebuild. That's the way to view this offseason's work that ends when training camp starts on Tuesday. You can praise them for making necessary change and hope they got it right this time. You can doubt them after three years of getting too much wrong. Hope and doubt are as inseparable as Grier and McDaniel at this point. They said good-bye to players who didn't buy into the collective culture like Jalen Ramsey, Jevon Holland and (gasp) Raheem Mostert. They quit writing unnecessary contracts for players just to be nice (though defensive tackle Zach Sieler needs paying). They turned the oldest roster in the league into something younger. All this offseason, Grier and McDaniel followed the first rule when you've dug yourself a hole: They stopped digging. That was important. But now comes the harder part of trying to lead everyone out of that hole. Can they? Will they? And, yes, lead is the operative verb for them here. Everyone around the Dolphins is hung up on which players are leaders, of how they lead, of their lost leaders like Terron Armstead and Calais Campbell. But if there's one thing this organization has lacked since Steve Ross took over it's leadership in the prime leadership positions. Ross wants to win and has spent a lot of money trying. But does he even recognize what leadership looks like inside an NFL team? His hires make you wonder. Joe Philbin was hired, Ross said, because he was organized as a power-point lecture showed in the interview. Mike Tannenbaum was hired, Ross said, because he ran the team's sports science wing so well. Adam Gase was hired due to his creative offensive thinking. Brian Flores was a gifted coach, but had people-management issues. Grier? He's followed whatever coach is in the building. Year 10, and does anyone know what he thinks winning football looks like? McDaniel is back to Ross's idea of a creative thinker and positive influence. Those are good qualities. But McDaniel's idea of a culture the first three years was of a football commune with his players, a kumbaya partnership with players who had done nothing to earn that relationship. Maybe McDaniel changes some in Year 4 after some of the players the organization trusted most like Ramsey and Tyreek Hill turned on the coach last season. The curiosity beginning Tuesday will be in seeing any such change. McDaniel's camp reflected his culture of comfort the past few years. Rotating days off for everyone. Few exhausting workouts. Players warming up without certain pads or helmets. No sprints after practice. One way to see it was progressive thinking in a league trying to reinvent training camp. Another way was the whispered word Armstead heard from players back when he signed with the team: 'Easy,' he said last year. McDaniel can't suddenly become Andy Reid, who takes his Kansas City Chiefs team away for training camp and has purposely tough practices. He can't be Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice, who begins each training camp with the toughest five practices of the season to set a tone. Something more like what Washington coach Dan Quinn did in his first season last year would fit McDaniel's way. Quinn gave players a blank sheet of paper at the start of training camp and had them write their standards for their team's culture. He posted the results and held players to them. Maybe that helped explain how Washington had a fun playoff run last season. Maybe it was more rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, too. The Dolphins have roster questions at cornerback and the offensive line. Most teams have some issue right now. But if Grier and McDaniel get the culture right this time that goes a long way toward solving problems of the past few years. That's the hope anyway. The intertwined doubt that's part of this training camp says if they can't solve it in three years they won't in the fourth year. That's the tension of this season. Hope and doubt. Now it's time to show how all these decisions work out. ____
NBC Sports
21 hours ago
- NBC Sports
Jets place DE Jermaine Johnson on active/PUP
The Jets placed edge rusher Jermaine Johnson on the active/physically unable to perform list Saturday, the team announced. Johnson tore his right Achilles in a Week 2 game against the Titans, but he is expected to be ready for the 2025 season opener. He gave an update after the Jets announced their pre-camp transactions. 'I will be on PUP because the team wants to move slow to be safe, which I agree with. Not because I'm not ready. All is well,' Johnson wrote on social media. Johnson, the 26th overall pick in 2022, earned Pro Bowl honors in 2023 when he totaled 7.5 sacks, 55 tackles, 11 tackles for loss, 16 quarterback hits and an interception that he returned for a touchdown. The Jets also placed wide receiver Irvin Charles on the active/PUP list. Charles, a core special teams player, tore an ACL on a punt-coverage snap against the Dolphins last December. At that time, his five tackles on special teams tied for team lead. Rookie linebacker Aaron Smith received an active/non-football injury/illness designation. His injury or illness is undisclosed. The South Carolina State product signed with the Jets as an undrafted free agent in April after leading the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference with 92 tackles in 2024.
