![\"Miami](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2257616044-1-e1769978005502.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Dolphins will not receive draft compensation<\/p>\n
After the season ended, the Miami Dolphins<\/a> fired their head coach<\/a> and began a coaching search that resulted in the team hiring former Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley as their new head coach<\/a>. Since then, Hafley has begun filling out his coaching staff, including retaining Dolphins pass-game coordinator Bobby Slowik and promoting him to offensive coordinator.<\/p>\n However, one move the Dolphins had yet to make was to announce their defensive coordinator. There was a reason for this, as despite 2025 defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver being expected to move on, he was a candidate in a few coaching searches.. Had he netted a head coaching job, the Dolphins would have received two third-round picks as compensation due to the Rooney Rule. Unfortunately for Miami, the remaining two head coaching vacancies have been filled<\/a> and Weaver was not hired by either of them.<\/p>\n Anthony Weaver\u2019s Time With the Miami Dolphins<\/p>\n Weaver spent two years with the Dolphins, the necessary time to fulfill the Rooney rule compensation eligibility. However, after head coach Mike McDaniel was fired and the team went with a defensive-minded head coach for the job, Weaver will not be retained for the 2026 season. With the Dolphins, Weaver took a unit that finished 22nd in points per game allowed in 2023 and elevated them to ninth as Miami allowed only 21.4 points per game.<\/p>\n Despite his success in his first year, he was criticized by starting safety Jordan Poyer<\/a>, who said players did not understand the scheme and he felt alone in the defense. Poyer told Ty Dunne of the Go Long Newsletter,<\/a> \u201cI didn\u2019t understand our defense. Nobody understood our defense. I can understand concepts of how an offense is trying to attack us \u2014 but if I don\u2019t know where the guy next to me knows where he\u2019s supposed to go? It\u2019s draining. It took a lot out of me. Mentally, physically, emotionally.\u201d<\/p>\n Miami Dolphins\u2019 Defense<\/p>\n Following the 2024 season, Weaver was a candidate for head coaching jobs, but he did not land any of them and returned to the Dolphins for the 2025 season. In 2025, the Miami defense regressed and finished as a bottom-10 unit in points allowed. <\/p>\n Regarding the disappointing performance, Weaver blamed the team adding players late in the offseason. He said<\/a>, \u201cWe need these people to be brought together earlier than they were. A lot of the guys that we ended up playing with either got here at the start of training camp, were kind of hurt in training camp, missed some of camp, so a lot of the growth we were trying to do as a defense occurred early in the season. When you combine that with the youth movement we were trying to make, that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen early. I think eventually it started to click for all of them in terms of what the expectation and what we were trying to get done, but we need to start to get that ball rolling earlier than August.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, Weaver and the front office will not get a chance to fix the issues of the 2025 season as the Dolphins have opted to go with a different defensive coordinator for the upcoming season. The Dolphins waited to see if Weaver would land a head coaching job, but once it became clear he was not going to, they announced Packers linebackers coach Sean Duggan<\/a> as their new defensive coordinator. Duggan spent time with head coach Jeff Hafley at Boston College and the Packers<\/a> over the previous two seasons.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tJose Esquer<\/a> Jose Esquer is a Mexican-American sportswriter and communications student based in San Diego, CA. His work spans football, basketball, baseball, and soccer. He has written for platforms like RotoWire and DolphinsTalk. You can find him on Twitter\/X @JEsquer8, usually talking Dolphins, world football, or both. More about Jose Esquer<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Dolphins\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty The Dolphins will not receive draft compensation After the season ended, the Miami Dolphins fired their head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2049],"tags":[217,7,216,251,2087,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-722266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-dolphins","8":"tag-dolphins","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-dolphins","12":"tag-miamidolphins","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115997475211248438","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}