When Tyler Huntley joined the Miami Dolphins in September, he hardly had time to acclimate to his new squad before he was thrust into action.
With Tua Tagovailoa on injured reserve, Skylar Thompson’s time as the replacement starter lasted little more than half a game. Huntley started the next three for the Dolphins and couldn’t do much to get the team’s offense on track. The team averaged 12.3 points and Huntley completed only 59.1 percent of his passes.
Two months later, Huntley looked like a different quarterback in his return to the starting lineup. He completed 84.6 percent of his passes with a pair of touchdowns (one passing, one rushing) in a 20-3 win against the Cleveland Browns.
It seemed the Dolphins had their backup quarterback of the future.
But two interceptions and four fumbles from Huntley in a Week 18 loss dragged Miami right back into its quarterback quandary. So should Huntley be back to compete for the No. 2 role in 2025?
The case for re-signing Huntley
As Tyreek Hill so eloquently put it in December, Huntley “came in at the beginning of the season and he was just raw dogging it.” After leading the team to a win at the end of the December, Huntley said it was nice to “actually know what the motions” are in the Dolphins offense.
It hardly seems fair to judge Huntley for his performance in the first three starts near the beginning of the 2024 season. And although the expectation was that he’d play much better in Week 18, the quarterback was still trying to operate an offense he learned on the fly after spending the offseason and training camp elsewhere.
Given a year of work with the Dolphins coaching staff, it’s not unreasonable to think Huntley would be capable of providing more performances like his Week 17 showing in Cleveland.
Should Huntley be the only option behind Tagovailoa heading into camp? Absolutely not.
But the Dolphins invested three months of time into a quarterback who showed enough promise to warrant a shot at continuing that development in Miami.
The case for letting Huntley walk
The Dolphins didn’t reach the playoffs for the first time in the McDaniel era for several reasons, but none larger than the team’s backup quarterback situation.
Miami’s offense crumbled to pieces in its six games without Tagovailoa and that included Huntley’s turnover-filled disaster in the Week 18 finale.
If Miami hopes to avoid a similar fiasco in the future, an investment at the quarterback position is a must. In January, Dolphins general manager Chris Grier told reporters the team was in the market for “a number of topflight backup quarterbacks” in the 2024 offseason.
Acquiring an experienced veteran — Marcus Mariota, perhaps? — and/or drafting a young passer should be a priority.
Huntley competing in camp would be fine if it came without a price tag. It won’t, though. While bringing Huntley won’t break the bank, he probably won’t sign for minimum wage either.
The Dolphins need to be deliberate about their spending and investing in Huntley would mean dishing out money for more of the same at the position.
Prediction
According to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, the Dolphins told Huntley late in the 2024 season that they were interested in bringing him back in 2025. Maybe his Week 18 implosion changed things. Probably not, though.
Huntley signed a one-year, $1.3 million deal with the Cleveland Browns last offseason and is probably just a little more expensive this time around.
Prediction: Dolphins re-sign Huntley to two-year, $5 million deal
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