Dave Hyde: Dolphins need a break at cornerback -- and a lot of help

Dave Hyde, South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Jul 30, 2025

Published in Football

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MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Everyone comes with a story. Mike Hilton is 30 and without a job until the Miami Dolphins signed him Sunday. Jack Jones signed then, too, for his third team in four years.

Storm Duck did some good work as an undrafted rookie last season. Cam Smith is the second-round pick who two defensive coordinators haven’t played. Ethan Bonner. Cornell Armstrong.

There are 12 cornerbacks on the Miami Dolphins roster.

Go ahead and name the three you need to start this season.

List even one not named Kader Kohou. And Kohou is hurt for now — not that now matters for him, a proven veteran, a guy you know can fill a certain role as a slot cornerback.

But what role will he be asked to fill if he’s the only proven cornerback?

“I’ll play wherever they want,’’ Kohou said before his knee injury put him out for at least a week or two.

The hope is someone rises up in camp. But that starts with surviving it. Starting safety Ashtyn Davis suffered a leg injury Tuesday that had him in a walking boot and on crutches by the end of practice. Stay tuned for his medical timeline.

Minkah Fitzpatrick is the only proven safety practicing now. Ifeatu Melifonwu, another penciled-in starter, isn’t on the field yet after suffering a season-injury with Detroit last year. The other six safeties on the roster have a combined three starts — all by Elijah Campbell.

Do the Dolphins hit the panic button?

Do they at least move it nearby, to be ready?

You can find safeties out there with a little luck. But cornerbacks? It’s one thing to trade Jalen Ramsey for the sake of a better culture. It’s another not to have anyone on the roster close to his talent.

Will general manger Chris Grier have his Jeff Ireland moment? Will we hear him say, as Ireland did years ago on “Hard Knocks” about his roster’s receivers, “We’ve got fours, fives and sixes. What we need are threes, twos and ones.”

The hope was for someone to be a great story this first week of training camp. So far, no one has. Sure, it’s still early. But no cornerback has furthered his story from being a young hope, an old castoff or a middling cross-your-fingers maybe.

Tuesday’s first day of wearing pads came and went with linebacker Willie Gay being the defensive star of the practice and a camp name people are talking about.

“He’s got some Super Bowl DNA,’’ veteran edge rusher Bradley Chubb said of Gay, a former Kansas City Chief. “I told him to spread some of that around to us.”

It’d be nice to have a cornerback to consider like that. Some big upside. But Tuesday passed with them collectively looking like background props for another good day of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa passing the ball down the field.

You know Tua can pass. But can these cornerbacks defend? The biggest reality show in any NFL training camp might be the one of survivor going in Dolphins camp. It’s not star search. It’s a just-be-average search.

Everyone knows why it matters: Josh Allen (twice), Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, Jayden Daniels, Aaron Rogers, Joe Burrow, Baker Mayfield and Drake Maye (twice). Those are some of the quarterbacks on the Dolphins’ schedule.

Last summer, it was backup quarterback and the interior of the line with obvious questions. They ended up sinking the season. This summer it’s a glaring issue at cornerback and the increasing question of the secondary.

Defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver did some nifty magic last season in having the 10th-ranked scoring defense despite injuries to the top pass rushers. Now he’s asked to start smoke and mirrors in the backfield if some answers aren’t coming.

How did this happen? Second-rounder Xavien Howard was the last cornerback the Dolphins hit on in the draft. That was 2017. The book isn’t closed on Smith — but it’s closing.

Fifth-rounder Jason Marshall becomes the new hope this season. It’s early. It’s possible he shows something in the coming weeks that changes the story for the better.

Meanwhile, the only noteworthy play by a cornerback made Tuesday was on the final play of practice. Armstrong, a 2018 Dolphins sixth-round pick who was re-signed by the team last week, sprinted in untouched on a blitz for an apparent sack if tackling was allowed.

It wasn’t the blanket coverage you’d like to see from anyone. But it was something. And in a camp where the Dolphins keep adding to questions in the secondary, something is as good as it looks.