Miami Dolphins Land Zach Wilson as Backup Quarterback
The Miami Dolphins have a reported free agent addition, and it’s a doozy.
After NFL fans watched teams from around the league make deal after deal after the free agency negotiating period opened Monday at noon, the Dolphins saved their first move for the early part of the evening.
The Dolphins have agreed to terms to quarterback Zach Wilson, according to multiple reports. It’s a one-year deal worth up to $10 million with $6 million fully guaranteed, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The move cannot become official until the start of the new league year Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET.
This would suggest that Wilson was signed to be the No. 2 quarterback behind Tua Tagovailoa because it’s not the kind of financial commitment a team would make for somebody who might or might not get the job.
Wilson, of course, was the second overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft after fellow quarterback Trevor Lawrence, but he flamed out with the New York Jets before he sent him to the Denver Broncos in a trade last April.
As an indication of how much Wilson’s star had dimmed, the Jets got only a sixth-round draft pick from Denver in return, and that’s after throwing in a seventh-round pick along with Wilson.
As the third quarterback behind rookie Bo Nix, who played all 17 games for the Broncos last season, and Jarrett Stidham, Wilson never saw the field in a regular season game in 2024.
In fact, his last NFL game came against the Dolphins in December of 2023 when he was knocked out of the game in the first half with a concussion, but not before he was sacked four times in Miami’s 30-0 victory.
Despite not seeing action in the regular season, Wilson managed to impress folks around the NFL with his preseason performance.
He played in all three of the Broncos’ preseason games and completed 28 of 44 passes (63.6 percent) for 397 yards with two touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 115.4.
More importantly, he showed the kind of poise in the pocket that was missing from his time with the Jets.
While Wilson always had the physical traits, starting with a strong arm, he easily got rattled and/or confused, which led to some poor decision-making.
His passer rating in his three seasons with the Jets, during which he started 33 of the 34 games he played, was a mediocre 73.2 overall and never better than the 77.2 he posted in his final season with the team in 2023.
The thinking behind his strong preseason showing in Denver is that head coach Sean Payton was able to quickly take his game to another level.
This, however, still looks like a risky move for the Dolphins, one that looks like it will bring high risk for the possibility of a high reward.
As good as Wilson looked in training camp and the preseason last summer, that simply is not the same as game action and the reality is that Wilson only had a few flashes of brilliance in New York.
Wilson did have three games with a passer rating over 100, and one of them came in his next-to-last start for the Jets, the week before the Miami game in December, when he had a career-high 117.9 rating in a 30-6 victory against the eventual AFC South champion Houston Texans.
The Dolphins are hoping that’ll be closer to what they see from Wilson if he’s called into action than, say, the 38.1 passer rating he produced in Week 2 of that 2023 season in a 30-10 loss against the Dallas Cowboys when he completed only 44.4 percent of his passes and threw three interceptions.
The addition of Wilson doesn’t preclude the Dolphins added a third quarterback, but again it’s not likely somebody who would be brought in to compete with him for the backup job behind Tua Tagovailoa.
One possibility for that third quarterback role certainly could be Tyler Huntley, who ended last season as the No. 2 but also began the season on the Baltimore Ravens practice squad.
The possibility exists that Huntley might not get many offers on the open market and therefore would be willing to come back to Miami, even with the understanding that Wilson would be the second guy.
However it shakes out in terms of a third quarterback, one thing is for sure when it comes to the second quarterback.
The Dolphins did not play it safe.
