Dolphins 2025 Midseason Awards

Lost amid all the weekend Miami Dolphins news following their Thursday night loss was the fact they now have reached the midway point of the 2025 season.

While the Dolphins played more than half their games, we're now through nine weeks of the 18-week season, so that's the midway mark as much as possible.

Regardless, the Dolphins' first half of the 2025 season was bad, if not brutal, which led to the removal of Chris Grier as general manager and questions about the future of head coach Mike McDaniel and a whole lot of players on the roster, including quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.

There quite frankly weren't a whole lot of highlights, but we'll try our best nonetheless to come up with our series of awards on this Dolphins Tuesday off before they attack the second half of the season with their rematch against the Buffalo Bills.

TEAM MVP

For a second consecutive season, running back De'Von Achane has been the focal point of the offense and despite a few drops he has mostly delivered. Achane leads the team in rushing and in receptions and in touchdowns and has a couple of runs longer than 40 yards. He's been the one dependable player above everybody else. Honorable mention here would go to tackle Patrick Paul, center Aaron Brewer (though not crazy about his seven penalties), linebacker Jordyn Brooks and cornerback Rasul Douglas.

The Choice: RB De'Von Achane

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

We wrote the same thing last year and it's very disappointing: The Dolphins haven't had a standout performance from any of their rookies so far this season. The one difference from last year is the rookies have played a lot more, with Kenneth Grant and Jonah Savaiinaea both starters, and Dante Trader Jr., Jordan Phillips and Ollie Gordon II all getting a significant amount of snaps. All of them have had their moments, just nearly not enough. And the winner here will be by default. Which is not a good thing.

The Choice: DT Jordan Phillips

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER

This is a slam dunk. And maybe the most pleasant development of the first half of this dreadful 2025 season, and that's the performance of second-year left tackle Patrick Paul. There were high hopes heading into the season he could perform well taking over for Terron Armstead and he set the stage with a really good training camp and preseason. Now, there is still some work left, particularly in run blocking, before he can be considered an upper-echelon tackle, but he sure looks like he's on his way.

The Choice: LT Patrick Paul

BEST OFFSEASON ACQUISITION

The Dolphins did make a series of veteran additions throughout the spring and summer, including Minkah Fitzpatrick, Jack Jones, Douglas, James Daniels, Darren Waller, but there's nodoby who has stood out as much as Douglas. Signed in late August after a rash of injuries, Douglas has looked like the prime version of himself instead of the player who slipped in 2024 when he was with the Buffalo Bills.

The Choice: CB Rasul Douglas

BEST TEAM PERFORMANCE

Considering the Dolphins are 2-6, there's again not a lot from which to choose, though we would say that Miami had an overall solid performance against Buffalo in Week 3 even if it didn't produce a victory. But the answer here is obvious, and that's the 34-10 victory against the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Week 8.

The Choice: Dolphins 34, Atlanta 10

LOWLIGHT AWARDS

Most Disappointing Team Performance

Yes. Sorry, bad joke. Given the opponent, we'd probably go here with the game against the Cleveland Browns in Week 7.

Most Disappointing Individual Performance

This is where you know it's been a rough first half of the season because there are simply too many candidates here. The answer here has to start with the players who had the highest expectations coming in, and that group would include Zach Sieler, Chop Robinson and Tua Tagovailoa, the latter because of the late-game failures in Weeks 2, 3 and 5. But the Dolphins really needed for Sieler to be at least as productive as the last few years and he hasn't come close to that level, so he'll get the nod here.

Most Disappointing Play

Again, too many options to consider. It would be easy to go with Tyreek Hill's devastating knee injury, but we'll stick with a play that didn't involve an injury, and that's the late-game interception at Buffalo when the Dolphins appeared headed for a touchdown that would tie the score or give them the lead (had they been bold enough to go for a two-point conversion).

Most Overhyped Acquisition

It's not that Minkah Fitzpatrick has played poorly because he's generally been pretty solid, but it simply hasn't mattered because the defense overall has been so leaky. Darren Waller was in consideration here because he's played only four of nine games, but he was very impactful in those three-plus games and it's not like injuries weren't a significant part of his past.

Most Disappointing Stat

In the interest of fairness because the 2-7 is a total team "effort," we'll go with one on each side of the ball. On offense, the Dolphins are one of two teams (along with the Las Vegas Raiders) to have been held under 10 points three times this season. The Dolphins had been held to single digits once in Mike McDaniel's first three seasons (the 24-3 loss at Seattle in 2024 with Skylar Thompson starting quarterback). On defense, the Dolphins have one interception on the season. We repeat: ONE interception. The franchise record for fewest in a full season is eight (in 2006 and 2022).