Miami Dolphins Adding Veteran Safety Marcus Maye

The Miami Dolphins’ roster building for the 2024 season indeed was not done.

The team had agreed to terms with veteran safety Marcus Maye, as first reported by NFL reporter Jordan Schultz and confirmed by a league source.

Maye has started all 77 games he has played during his seven-year NFL career, which includes five seasons with the New York Jets and the past two with the New Orleans Saints.

With the Saints in 2023, Maye was limited to seven games because of a three-game league suspension for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy and because of a shoulder injury. The Saints released him in the offseason. Maye also went on IR in 2021 because of a torn Achilles tendon.

In those seven games, Maye came up with two interceptions, matching his career high and giving him eight for his career.

Maye played all 16 games three times in his five seasons with the Jets before he went to New Orleans when he signed a three-year deal as an unrestricted free agent in 2022.

Pro Football Focus gave Maye the fifth-best grade among all safeties in 2020 after he was 11th and 17th the previous two seasons.

Here’s an inside look at Maye’s two seasons in New Orleans from Kyle Mosley, the publisher of SI Fan Nation sister site Saints News Network: “Marcus Maye had plenty of promise when he signed with the Saints in 2002, pairing him with Tyrann Mathieu.  He was inactive due to injuries for seven games in his first season.  In 2023, he played only seven games after a three-game suspension for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy and being placed on injured reserve on Dec. 6.  Maye never became a playmaking safety for New Orleans. He and Mathieu gave the Saints’ defensive backfield a veteran presence, but that’s all. Injuries and off-field trouble plagued his tenure.”

The addition of Maye should solidify the secondary, which already added veterans Jordan Poyer and Kendall Fuller in the offseason.

The safety position was a bit thing even after the addition of Poyer, though, and Maye even could end up challenging Poyer for the starting job next to Jevon Holland.

Along with those three, the Dolphins safeties include Elijah Campbell, potentially slot cornerback Nik Needham in a position change, rookie sixth-round pick Patrick McMorris and rookie free agent Mark Perry.

Maye will become the first veteran signed by the Dolphins since wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. early last month.