Has Sanders Kicked His Last Kick for Dolphins?

Jason Sanders is one game away from having a completely lost season as Miami Dolphins kicker, but beyond that it's fair to wonder whether he'll even be back in 2026 even though he's under contract for one more year.

Sanders is practicing for a third week after spending the entire season on injured reserve as the result of a freakish hip injury he sustained during pregame warmups in the preseason, but there's no guarantee the Dolphins will activate him for their season finale against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium on Sunday.

Riley Patterson has done a splendid job after winning a kicker battle to become Sanders' replacement, to the point where he could wind up beating Sanders' team record for field goal accuracy in a season.

Patterson has made 26 of 28 attempts this season for a 92.8 success rate and he'll be made Sanders' mark of 92.3 set in 2020 if he doesn't have a miss against New England on Sunday — or if the Dolphins activate Sanders and use him against the Patriots.

But at this point, it's not a reach to think the Dolphins will just let Patterson finish out the best season of his five-year NFL career.

Special teams coordinator Craig Aukerman might have provided a clue when he was asked about the potential effects of playing in Massachusetts on Sunday when the weather is expected to be around 32 in the afternoon.

"I mean, it's going to be the same like we had up there in Pittsburgh, just a different surface, obviously," Aukerman said. "So I think the last time we had talked about this, even mentioned that Riley is used to kicking on snow anyways, for where he came from."

Patterson's previous NFL stops included the Cleveland Browns and New York Jets.

Aukerman also addressed Sanders' work in practice, and it also didn't sound like he was talking about somebody whose return seemed likely.

"He's been out there doing some kicks and longer field goals," Aukerman said. "We've been testing them out. We actually even go into the stadium on Fridays. Jason, again, is progressing really well. We know we feel Riley's been doing a really good job. Anytime you're over 90% as far as field goals, and he's doing a really good job on kickoffs, we just feel like we want to make sure that Jason is ready to go, and we've got a really good guy right now with Riley doing a great job for us."

THE 2026 KICKER OUTLOOK

Patterson signed with the Dolphins after a tryout that included Greg Joseph, Zane Gonzalez and Eddy Piñeiro, landing a one-year contract at the veteran minimum.

He will be an unrestricted free agent next March unless Miami re-signs him before then, and he's giving the Dolphins every reason to do just that.

But what about Sanders?

As mentioned before, he's got one year left on the extension he signed in 2021 plus a void year in 2027.

But here's the kicker (pun intended): The Dolphins can save almost $4 million of cap space by releasing Sanders next offseason and the team once again will be in the position of having to look for ways to create space.

So it could be that the Dolphins decide that, as good as Sanders has been since arriving as a seventh-round pick in 2018, they can more than make do at kicker by re-signing Patterson at a lower cap number than Sanders' currently scheduled $4.6 million and make the switch permanent.