Its is the overarching mystery of this coming Miami Dolphins season, the delight waiting to happen and the risk looming — all at once, and all involving the most important position.
How good is quarterback Malik Willis? Is he good? Can he be great?
The sport of football has been wondering that about him for 10 years, ever since high school in Roswell, Georgia. The question is unanswered still. The latest proving ground is the practice fields near Hard Rock Stadium, the NFL preseason that begins this week, and a franchise that has put Willis out front as the face of its major rebuild.
The Fins’ exhibition opener is Friday night at Washington. Starters don’t typical play, but head coach Jeff Hafley wouldn’t rule out anyone including Willis seeing action, saying Monday, “Everybody who is on our team right now needs to be ready to play.”
Willis is a fifth-year pro at age 27, after two-year stints with Tennessee and Green Bay. He has embraced the leader role his position both demands and assumes.
Offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik says Willis has been “living at the facility,” devouring film study. Saturday, he gave an impromptu talk to the team, his team.
“I wanted to talk to the offense and just have a man-to-man conversation,” Willis said. “We got to understand this is a business and take what we do personal. We got to take pride in it, and we got to do it to the best of our ability. Whether we win the down or not, are we doing everything that we can do to execute the play call? Are we doing our job on the O-line? Are we doing our job at receiver? Is everybody doing the right thing? That’s what it’s about, building confidence in those things. These are the people that I go to war with.”
The new Fins head coach Hafley and new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan knew Willis from the Packers and signed him in March to a three-year, $67.5 million contract with $45 million of it guaranteed. It was the only big spending Miami did this offseason, though, as QBs go, that’s fairly modest starter money.
This is the first time in the NFL that Willis has been handed the ball and told it’s his team. On the first day of training camp, the three persons made available to the media were new coach Hafley, defensive star Jordyn Brooks and Willis. No coincidence. His team now. But it also is fair to say this might be his last shot at the starting, and the stardom, that has eluded him.
Willis wasn’t heavily recruited out of high school, languished on the bench two seasons at Auburn (14 total pass attempts), then transferred to finish college for the lower-tier Liberty Flames.
Only 6-1 but fast and athletic, Willis was a third-round pick in a bad NFL Draft for quarterbacks in 2022, the third passer taken after nondescript Kenny Pickett and Desmond Ridder. The Dolphins wanted to draft a quarterback that year but bypassed Willis, waited and took Skylar Thompson late. In two years with the Titans and Packers, Willis started only three games total for each team.
Now, surrounded by the youngest roster in the league, a wide receivers room light on proof and a betting over/under of 4 1/2 wins (second lowest in the NFL), Willis has his big chance. The Fins still had star receiver Jaylen Waddle when he signed but then traded him for draft picks in the rebuild.
“It was unfortunate for sure, to say the least,” Willis admitted of losing Waddle. “His versatility and explosiveness, for real, for real. I would have loved to play with him, but that’s above my pay grade, brother.’
The Dolphins hope Willis still can become a late bloomer a la Sam Darnold, who struggled and idled early in his career, made his first Pro Bowl at Willis’ age and won a Super Bowl with Seattle last season.
“I won’t put no stuff like that on myself, but just trying to take advantage of the opportunity, for sure,” Willis says of the Darnold parallel. “I don’t think I put a timeline on it. I think it happened when I was prepared. When I came into the league, I wasn’t prepared. I’ve had a chance to learn the last four years. I think I’ve grown a lot. You just got to prove it and that’s where we’re at right now.”
There are two extremes in play with Willis this season:
• He fulfills or even exceeds the new regime’s faith in him, blossoms into the dual-threat star they had hoped and proves himself starter quality — long-term or at least as a solid fix moving forward.
• Or he struggles and seems more of a stopgap guy, calling into question the three-year deal and the $45 million guarantee, and leaving Miami in QB flux again.
The gray in the middle of those extremes is that Miami must decide after this season: Is Willis is good enough to not spend a No. 1 pick next year on a quarterback? Or is it apparent Willis is not “a franchise guy” and the team should spend a top pick on the position in a quarterback-rich 2027 draft?
Plainly, this franchise is due for something to go right at the most important position — because so little has since Dan Marino retired after the 1999 season. Quite literally, this entire century has been a litter of Dolphins bad decisions and placeholder solutions at quarterback. So fitting that the Fins have not won a playoff game since Marino, the longest current drought in the NFL.
Post-Marino, the curse at quarterback started with journeyman Jay Fiedler, then one-year temps A.J. Feeley, Gus Frerotte and Joey Harrington. That brought us to 2006, when Miami and then-coach Nick Saban opted to trade for Daunte Culpepper instead of signing Drew Brees because team doctors convinced Saban that Brees had only a 25% chance to play again due to a severe shoulder injury.
Brees enjoyed a long, illustrious career that saw him inducted Saturday into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Culpepper started four games in his only season with Miami.
Following that franchise-deflating decision, the Fins’ broken QB carousel was on to Cleo Lemon, Chad Pennington, a second-round shot on Chad Henne that didn’t pan out, then Matt Moore.
Next the Dolphins would see 13 years of wheel-spinning (2012-25) with Ryan Tannehill and Tua Tagovailoa, and a smidgen of Ryan Fitzpatrick in between. Tannehill and Tagovailoa were high first-round picks seen as franchise quarterbacks, but the franchise eventually moved on, dissatisfied, done with both.
The Dolphins have been average or below at quarterback for way too long, but now maybe the law of averages can gift Miami some excellence again at the position?
Up to you, Malik Willis.
This story was originally published August 10, 2026 at 11:51 AM.
Greg Cote is a Miami Herald sports columnist who in 2025 won a first-place Green Eyeshade award in Sports Commentary and has finished top 10 in column writing by the Associated Press Sports Editors on multiple occasions. Greg also hosts The Greg Cote Show podcast and appears regularly on The Dan LeBatard Show With Stugotz.