SoFla Guide Editors
Malik Willis took snaps, handed off and went through the motion on Tuesday, but he never actually let a football fly. That was the scene at the Dolphins’ light bye-week practice in Miami Gardens on Oct. 14, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s David Furones, who reported that Willis did not throw during the portion open to media. On the same day, the 0-5 Dolphins were working out a cornerback, per Yahoo Sports and Dolphins Wire, as they try to patch a secondary that keeps losing bodies.
What happened at practice
Furones reported in the Sun Sentinel that Willis was seen taking snaps, handing off to running backs and going through an easy throwing motion without releasing the ball. Yahoo Sports and Dolphins Wire corroborated that account.
So who did throw? Backup Kyle McCord and third-stringer Brady Cook handled all of the passing work, according to the Sun Sentinel via Yahoo Sports. Cook has had quite the week. He was cut from the active roster Saturday ahead of the Week 5 game against Cincinnati, cleared waivers, and was signed back onto the practice squad Monday, the Sun Sentinel reported. Welcome back, stay a while.
Here is the part Dolphins fans will not love: Miami is not releasing an injury report off the Tuesday session, per Yahoo Sports and the Sun Sentinel. The next report will not come until Wednesday of next week, ahead of the Oct. 25 game at the New York Jets. In other words, if you want an official answer on why Willis kept the ball in his hand, you are going to have to wait.
The turnover problem Hafley wants solved
The context here is not subtle. Miami dropped a 31-24 decision to the Bengals on Oct. 11, falling to 0-5, and Willis had three turnovers in that game. Head coach Jeff Hafley did not dance around it afterward.
“We got to look hard at it during the bye week,” Hafley said, in comments carried by Yahoo Sports via ESPN on Monday. “We talk about ball security all the time and we work on it and we’ve got to do a better job of putting him in those situations and he’s got to have the awareness to protect the ball as well.”
That is a coach taking some of the blame and handing some of it back to his quarterback in the same breath. It is also a coach who knows Willis well. Hafley, hired this year to replace Mike McDaniel, was on the Packers staff that had Willis as a backup in Green Bay in 2024 and 2025. Willis signed with Miami as a free agent this offseason and is in his first season as a full-time NFL starter. The former Packers connection was supposed to be a feature, not a question mark.
Hafley framed the bye more broadly after the Bengals loss, according to Yahoo Sports: “I think it will be a good time for us to look hard and evaluate the players, evaluate the scheme, evaluate how we’re coaching, evaluate what certain guys can do.”
Evaluate the players. Evaluate the scheme. Evaluate the coaching. That is every box checked, which tells you how wide open this bye week really is.
The cornerback workout
Miami’s secondary needs help, and the roster math explains why. Storm Duck is on PUP with a knee issue, Darrell Baker Jr. is also on PUP, JuJu Brents came out of the Bengals game with a stinger, and Reese Taylor was ruled out before that game even kicked off. That is a lot of empty lockers at one position.
Enter Cobee Bryant. NFL insider Jordan Schultz reported the Dolphins are working out the 25-year-old cornerback on Tuesday, per Yahoo Sports, Dolphins Wire and Heavy.com. Bryant came into the league as an undrafted free agent with the Atlanta Falcons in 2025 and appeared in seven games for Atlanta that season. The Falcons brought him back for the 2026 offseason and preseason before releasing him from the practice squad in early September. Since then he has also worked out for the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers.
His college resume is the selling point, and a team that just gave the ball away three times could use someone who takes it back.
A workout is only a workout, though. There was no reported signing as of Tuesday.
What the bye can and cannot fix
A bye week does not undo five losses, and it will not erase a minus-62 point differential that stands as the worst in the NFL this season. What it can do is give Hafley and his staff a chance to slow down, reset the quarterback, and find at least one more healthy corner before the schedule picks back up.
The next test comes on the road against the Jets on Oct. 25 in Week 7. Expect the first real clues on Willis’s status in that Wednesday injury report, and expect the roster to keep churning in the meantime. Brady Cook can tell you all about that.
