Dolphins coach not mulling benching Willis but 'pass game has to be better'

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  Marcel Louis-JacquesOct 12, 2026, 05:45 PM ET

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  Marcel Louis-Jacques joined ESPN in 2019 as a beat reporter covering the Buffalo Bills, before switching to the Miami Dolphins in 2021. The former Carolina Panthers beat writer for the Charlotte Observer won the APSE award for breaking news and the South Carolina Press Association award for enterprise writing in 2018.

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- Miami Dolphins coach Jeff Hafley is not considering a quarterback change heading into their Week 6 bye, but he did say his team's passing offense must improve.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Hafley reiterated that Malik Willis will remain the team's starting quarterback, and he is not considering a change to backup Kyle McCord. However, particularly after Sunday's loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, during which the Dolphins struggled to move the ball through the air, Hafley admitted the team must be able to pass the ball more effectively.

"Malik needs to be better, OK? And that's not the headline," Hafley said. "The headline is we all need to be better, and I mean that. I thought yesterday for the first time we ran the ball really well and we moved the ball. We ran for 200 yards against a really good team. But everything in the pass game has to be better, right? It's the receivers, it's the tight ends, it's the protection. It all has to tie in, and it all has to be better.

"And that's the quarterback, that's the coaches, that's the offensive line, that's the running backs, that's the tight ends. This is a team game that we all need to be more efficient, and we need to be better. And we will work through that. I have confidence in the coaches, I have confidence in the players that we have. We will work through that and we will get better. It's been five weeks."

Willis ranks 31st in the NFL with a 56.2% completion percentage and 23rd in quarterback rating (43.9). Through five games, he's thrown for 849 yards and two touchdowns against four interceptions.

The former third-round pick has also rushed for 186 yards and two touchdowns, albeit with five fumbles.

Willis has lost fumbles in each of his past three games, which is an area Hafley said the team will focus on during the bye week.

"We got to look hard at it during the bye week," Hafley said. "We talk about ball security all the time and we work on it and we've got to do a better job of putting him in those situations and he's got to have the awareness to protect the ball as well. We'll take a hard look at fixing that because we're not going to win games if we're fumbling the ball like that."

The Dolphins' offense is the youngest in the NFL, with three rookies receiving consistent playing time. Their offensive line, which returned its top four starters from a season ago, ranks middle-of-the-pack in terms of protection with a 50.8% pass block win rate. But Willis is the fifth-most contacted quarterback in the league, and the fourth-most sacked.

He got off to a slow start in Sunday's loss, at one point throwing more interceptions than completions before ultimately finishing with 137 yards and a touchdown on 15-of-27 passing.

Miami enters its bye week on a five-game losing streak to start the season and Willis said the week needs to comprise of self-reflection and accountability if the team is to earn its first win since Dec. 28, 2025.

"I think we just got to watch the tape and figure it out. And that's the thing that I think Coach Haf does great," Willis said. "He holds everybody accountable and he's honest with us. If we need to do better, we need to do better. And if we got to execute, we need to execute. We got to figure out a way to get guys on the same page because there's just a lot left out on the field that could be better than what it is."