The Miami Dolphins will have a new quarterback in the 2026 season. While Malik Willis has not been officially named the team’s starter, the fact he signed a three-year, $67 million contract with $45 million guaranteed, which likely ensures that he will be Miami’s starter in Week 1 of the regular season.
However, unlike past seasons where the Dolphins had some idea of what to expect out of their quarterback, Willis is an unknown. He has not been a team’s primary starting quarterback during his four-year NFL career, but has shown glimpses of being capable of leading a team. Whether those glimpses, which Willis showed in Green Bay, are enough to lead the Dolphins remains to be seen.
One media member seems to believe the Dolphins quarterback is still a long way away from proving he’s the answer at the position for the team.
Miami Dolphins Quarterback Called Out
Miami Herald’s Omar Kelly handed out the Dolphins’ 2026 offseason superlatives. Regarding Willis, he was named as “Needs the Most Work.” Kelly wrote:
“In fairness to Willis, who has a reputation for being an athletic quarterback, I haven’t seen him take off and run once in all the practices the media has watched. That’s probably not a coincidence since his focus has been on developing as a pocket passer. His offseason work makes it clear Miami needs to find a way to improve his processing speed, making him operate a half a second faster reading defenses. Willis also needs to spend the next month developing better chemistry with his weaponry. If not we can expect Miami’s passing game to get off to a slow start.”
This is not the first time Kelly has been critical of Willis. In fact, Kelly suggested the team should embrace a quarterback competition between Willis and Ewers, as he previously wrote:
“There are some days he (Ewers) has outperformed Willis in the sessions the media has watched … So far Ewers looks like a quarterback who is taking the next step, and a contributing factor to that is that there’s carryover between the offense he learned last season under Mike McDaniel and the one Slowik is installing since they come from the same west coast offensive tree.”
Malik Willis’ Offseason
Kelly’s criticism of Willis did not stop there. Despite being Miami’s biggest offseason contract given out to a free agent, Kelly named wide receiver Jalen Tolbert as the team’s biggest addition. Kelly wrote:
“It would be easy to name quarterback Malik Willis as the biggest addition, but I would have been more comfortable doing so if he put some distance between himself and Quinn Ewers this offseason. That wasn’t the case.”
Meanwhile, Dolphins on SI’s Alain Poupart seemed to shut down the idea of a possible quarterback competition in Miami, as he said “Willis still the guy” in one of his minicamp observations. Poupart wrote:
“There should be zero question that Malik Willis will be the starting quarterback for the Dolphins in 2026. Zero. None. And for all the good work that Ewers did, there’s a clear difference in athletic ability, most notably zip, arm strength and mobility when it comes to the two quarterbacks.”
Dolphins Quarterback Called Out After OTAs: ‘Needs the Most Work’