The Miami Dolphins were unable to obtain their second win of the 2025 season on Sunday. They held a 13-9 lead at the halftime break, scored 14 more points in the fourth quarter alone and had the lead with under a minute remaining, yet they lost to the Los Angeles Chargers 29-27 and dropped to 1-5 on the season.
The outcome of Sunday’s contest only further cements one reality: Miami is looking dead in the eye at a lost season.
Looking ahead to the remainder of the Dolphins’ schedule, they do have some beatable teams left to play, but there may also be too many losses remaining on their schedule for them to climb out of a 1-5 hole. Even not factoring in their poor record, it just feels as if this Dolphins team isn’t good enough to make the playoffs.
With Miami being a bottom-feeder team at this stage of the season, would a 1-16 finish (or something in that realm) be the best-case scenario for the franchise due to draft implications? Let’s break it down with a case for each side.
Why a horrible finish is the best possible scenario for the Dolphins
Finishing the 2025 campaign with as few victories as possible would give the Dolphins a prime chance to land the No. 1 overall pick and thus draft a game-changer. Miami hasn’t picked first overall since all the way back in 2008, and the franchise would have some options in the 2026 NFL Draft if it were picking first.
If the Dolphins wanted to try to get their secondary back on track, Ohio State University safety Caleb Downs is considered by many to be a top prospect in the coming draft, and he’s a special talent at the position. He’s got one interception so far this season for a Buckeyes team that is ranked No. 1 in the nation.
Last season, Downs was a unanimous All-American on Ohio State’s national championship team.
Or, if the Dolphins wanted to pull the plug on the Tua Tagovailoa era and roll with another signal-caller, Indiana University quarterback Fernando Mendoza is someone they could turn to with the top pick. The junior has thrown more touchdowns than anyone in the Big Ten up to this point, and he’s averaging 237.2 passing yards per contest for an undefeated Hoosiers squad.
It’s too early to say for sure what the top of the quarterback class is going to look like, but Mendoza is currently listed as the betting favorite to be the No. 1 overall pick at multiple sportsbooks.
Essentially, the Dolphins could speed up any potential rebuild by posting a 1-16 season. They would have a solid foundation to be more competitive with an elite prospect in the fold.
Why anything close to a 1-16 record would actually be a nightmare
For a team that has already faced plenty of criticism about its culture in recent years, a 1-16 season might be the last thing Miami needs to get back to respectability. Such a season would mark the single worst campaign in team history and set a new low for the organization.
It’s possible that discussions about the Dolphins purposely tanking for the No. 1 overall pick would run rampant late in the season in this scenario, and that would be nothing short of bad publicity.
It also might be foolish for the team to give up on its playoff hopes with more than half of its schedule left. Now, Miami is certainly facing incredibly long odds to qualify, as very few teams in league history have rallied from a 1-5 start to make it. But it can be done, and folks need only look at how the last 1-5 Dolphins team rallied late in the season for proof that not all hope is lost.
In the 2021 campaign, Miami started 1-5 (and even reached 1-7 at one point), yet it ended the campaign with nine wins and almost made the playoffs. Miami had a 9-8 record, and the Pittsburgh Steelers got the last Wild Card spot in the AFC that season with a 9-7-1 record.
Late in that campaign, the Dolphins won seven games in a row to get back in the playoff race, and Tagovailoa was a major factor. He’s helped the Dolphins pull off improbable winning stretches before, and so long as he’s healthy, he has the talent to do it again.
What’s the verdict?
Fans of the Dolphins should feel as if the team is playing with house money for the rest of the season.
If the team’s inability to win games persists for the rest of the season and Miami ends up with one of the worst records in the NFL, then folks can look forward to the squad acquiring a highly talented young player soon.
Conversely, if Miami puts together a late-season run similar to the one in 2021 and turns its season around, the squad can hopefully build on that stretch of play moving forward.
But ultimately, with the Dolphins not on track to accomplish anything of significance this season, a losing season that results in a high draft pick would be the best outcome for their future.
