\u201cAll we\u2019ve been waiting for as coaches, is to get around our players,\u201d Hafley said at the owner\u2019s meeting. \u201cNow we\u2019re not allowed to do too much with them because it\u2019s going to be Phase 1, but those are the things that I\u2019m excited to be around. I\u2019m going to continue to coach and get my hands on those guys and help develop them.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Hafley alluded to, Phase 1 of the offseason program allows for very little. There are meetings, strength and condition as well as even a little rehabilitation. Sure, it might not be the most glamorous part of the season. But for a team in search of its identity under a new coach, these workouts set the foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we can be physical, we have to be physical,\u201d Hafley said. \u201cDoes that mean sometimes there might be some live work in training camp? Yeah, there might be. I want to find out who can play the game of football. I\u2019ve said this before, you know how you get good at football? You play football. You know how you get good at tackling? You tackle and you block and you get off blocks and you run to the football and you finish down the field and then you set a standard where this is how it\u2019s going to look or you\u2019re not playing.\u201d<\/p>\n Added Hafley: \u201cThere are restrictions, so as I say the guys are going to be here in a week, we can\u2019t do that in OTAs. It\u2019s not a physical deal, but how we train, how we run to the ball, how we move, how we attack in the weight room, that has to be our mindset in everything that we do.\u201d<\/p>\n More than that, it will be about whether Hafley can get players to buy in to the \u201cstandard\u201d that he plans to set<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cYou set a standard, and you talk to the players about what the expectation is, and you hold them to it,\u201d Hafley said. \u201cYou make it very black and white \u2014 these are the things we talked about together, this is the standard that we want, this is how we\u2019re going to hold each other accountable, and then we\u2019re going to hold you to it.\u201d<\/p>\n This will be even more important in 2026 than previous years. Not only will the season be rough due to the talent purge that occurred over the last few months, the Dolphins will have an excess of young talent as Miami owns 11 draft picks \u2014 seven of which come in the top 100 \u2014 as of this writing. Whatever foundation that you build today will become how the 2026 rookies and second-year players lead their rookies in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you start to build that and create that,\u201d Hafley said, \u201cthen all the young guys are going to see it and that\u2019s how they\u2019re going to practice.\u201d<\/p>\n How Hafley adapts to coaching at the NFL level will be worth observation. The 47-year-old hasn\u2019t been a head coach since 2023 \u2014 and even that was at the collegiate level. Sure, Hafley said he\u2019s learned a lot from that experience yet time will be the ultimate judge of that.<\/p>\n For the time being, there\u2019s offseason workouts, an opportunity for Hafley to begin to shape the Dolphins in his image.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I tried to bring to Green Bay was a play style on defense that we were going to play harder and more physical and more violent than everybody that we played,\u201d Hafley said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I wanted to add to the Green Bay Packers, and I think for the most part, if you turned on our tape, we played pretty hard. I want our whole team here in Miami to play with that same mind-set. This isn\u2019t just about me coaching the defense now, this is about the culture of every person that touches that field, that\u2019s what I want it to look like.\u201d<\/p>\n
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