Despite a hole at corner, Dolphins coordinator Weaver vows to ‘play good defense’
The cornerback position is a glaring hole for the Miami Dolphins.
With Jaire Alexander officially a Baltimore Raven plus the Dolphins’ apparent unwillingness to sign the remaining free agent corners, it doesn’t look like the situation will improve any time soon — especially considering Jalen Ramsey wants to play elsewhere. Luckily, the Dolphins have an ace up their sleeve by the name of Anthony Weaver
“A lot of guys can get up here and complain about personnel; I promise you we will never do that,” the Dolphins defensive coordinator said in late May.
Weaver’s expertise will certainly be pushed in 2025. After he fielded the fourth-ranked defense in 2024 despite clear deficiencies at edge rusher and safety, there’s hope he can do it again.
Said Weaver: “Ultimately, we’re going to find a way with a bunch of guys that are volunteers and not hostages that want to get better, and if we do that and we can find a way to play as one collective unit — which is what we’re always chasing — we’re going to play good defense.”
To his credit, Weaver must have seen the writing on the wall. Ramsey’s impending departure means the cornerback room doesn’t have as much talent as previous years. The best way to hide subpar cornerback play, however, is an exceptional pass rush, something the Dolphins could have considering the health in the edge rusher room — specifically that of Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips — plus the draft capital invested on the interior defensive line.
“Really excited about Kenneth Grant and what he brings to the middle of that defense, and him just being in here and have the opportunity to work with Benito [Jones] and Zach Sieler and obviously [defensive line] coach [Austin] Clark,” Weaver said of the Dolphins’ 2025 first-round pick, one of three defensive tackles taken alongside Jordan Phillips and Zeek Biggers. “Whatever he’s supposed to be at the end of the day, I promise you he will reach every bit of God-given potential.”
Added Weaver: “Really happy about Jordan Phillips, guy who was kind of under the radar a little bit, but the way he plays on film and just the person that he is, it’s the same thing; he’s going to reach that ceiling. I have really high hopes for both those kids. And then I still don’t know how we got we Zeek Biggers in the seventh — a guy with that size, that length, that mass to play as hard as he plays, he can end up being a steal for us, too.”
Continuity should be a big factor as well. For the first time since 2022, the Dolphins will have the same defensive coordinator for consecutive years. That should pay dividends as the team looks to address some of the shortcomings that plagued them in 2024.
“Being able to spend all the time with the defensive staff and ‘Weave’ in particular, just where we’re able to utilize each other to make gains for the ultimate goal of creating something unique to ourselves that is better than the opponent,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said June 12. “So all of those things, it’s been a really cool offseason that there’s been a lot of details, a lot of position-specific drill work that’s driven from very convicted offseason studies.”
The Dolphins, for example, were subpar tacklers in 2024. That was one of the deficiencies McDaniel and Weaver can address from Day 1.
“In Year 2 in a defensive scheme, you can really use a paintbrush to show guys how they can put themselves in a position each and every play when they’re not tackling to be better tacklers,” McDaniel continued. “The nuts and the bolts of technique and fundamentals for the enhancement of the players that is in Year 2 [is] a much more manageable thing to do than Year 1.”
The players have already begun to reap the benefits of the continuity, as well.
“When you have that system over a couple years like we do now with ‘Weave’ and such a solid system where he has so much in his back pocket he wants to get to or can get to, it’s just that much more exciting because we can get that much more in depth and that much more function from our defense to build around how we want based on the teams we’re playing,” Sieler said in early May.
How Weaver ultimately decides to mask the Dolphins’ boundary cornerback play will certainly be something to watch in 2025. If Weaver somehow manages to make it work, he might not be around much longer as he already was a head coach candidate during the most recent hiring cycle.
