The Miami Dolphins are not going to be a very good team in 2026 after they gutted the roster and kick-started a massive rebuild.
Jeff Hafley and Jon-Eric Sullivan are rebuilding this team, and with hundreds of millions in dead cap space, the odds for a successful 2026 season are slim at best.
However, ESPN’s Marcel Louis-Jacques is predicting that the Dolphins will not have a losing record at home, instead going .500 in an unexpected outcome.
“Miami will finish the season with a .500 record… at home,” Louis-Jacques writes. “What the Dolphins might lack in top-end talent, they’ll make up for in effort — and that’s enough to catch a few teams slipping.”
This prediction from Louis-Jacques might be a welcome one for a team trying to move beyond their rebuild and show some life, but for the 2026 Dolphins, this would be a disaster.
Dolphins’ predicted .500 home record would be a disaster
The Dolphins are predicted by Louis-Jacques to go .500 at home. During the 2026 season, they have eight games at home.
They face the Kansas City Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals, New England Patriots, Detroit Lions, New York Jets, Chicago Bears, Los Angeles Chargers, and Buffalo Bills in 2026 at home.
It’s well within the range of outcomes to win a game or two here, with the Jets and Bengals matchups the most likely games to win. But if they found a way to win four of these games, it would be a disaster.
In a rebuilding year, with both the head coach and general manager safe, it would make sense to fully commit to the tank. Sure, a win or two won’t be a disastrous outcome, but going .500 at home would be a bad outcome.
If this Dolphins team were to finish 2026 with more than four wins, they could be at risk of dropping too far down the draft order in 2027’s stacked draft class.
Whether it’s to land a franchise quarterback or to draft an elite prospect at a different position, the Dolphins should ideally wind up with a top-five pick.
This prediction from Louis-Jacques would be a disaster for the Dolphins, as they’d likely drop down the draft board a bit with such a successful 2026 season at home.
