Hafley explains plan. And Dolphins draft chatter, including another 30 visit
A six-pack of Dolphins notes on a Thursday:
▪ If there’s one position where the Dolphins could begin the season with only players on their team last year — and still be perfectly fine — it’s tailback.
But you might have heard that this Dolphins regime likes competition. So it’s no surprise they’re canvassing the list of draft prospects at that position, too.
Among the backs that intrigue them from this class: Indiana’s Kaelon Black. He’s one of the maximum 30 nonlocal players who have been scheduled for a predraft 30 visit at Dolphins headquarters, as Aaron Wilson reported.
Black helped anchor the national champion Hoosiers’ ground game last season, rushing 186 times for 1,040 yards (5.6 per carry) and 10 touchdowns. He rushed for 79 yards, including a 20-yard rush on third-and-7 to extend a touchdown drive, in Indiana’s 27–21 win against UM in the national championship game. Black played his first two seasons at James Madison and his past two at Indiana.
Black, who is 5-9 and 208 pounds, is a “’get what is blocked’ runner with good size and above-average aggression as a finisher,” NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein said, adding that “Black split carries in Indiana’s downhill attack and generally kept the run on its designed track. He lacks ideal burst and utilizes too many stutter steps in processing the run lane while headed to the hole.
“He’s not elusive inside but will add yards with his tackle-breaking and fall-forward running style. Black is a grinder with below-average third-down value, but he could create competition for a RB3/4 role in camp.”
▪ Coach Jeff Hafley gave a comprehensive answer when asked how he’s going to hold his players accountable, which was a problem at times during the Mike McDaniel era (my words, not Hafley’s).
“You make it very black and white — these are the things we talked about together, this is the standard that we want, this is how we’re going to hold each other accountable and then we’re going to hold you to it,” Hafley said.
“It’s not going to be, ‘Hey, this is what we say we want, but then we’re going to not show up on time and we’re not going to put in the extra work and we’re not going to do the little things that we’re saying.’ That’s not how it’s going to work. It’s going to be a shared vision and then my job and our job as coaches is to hold them to that.
“We’re going to sit down and have that conversation, and then don’t get mad at me [if I get upset] when it’s 110 degrees and you don’t feel like doing it anymore. I’m going to make you do it because you told me when you were comfortable in this meeting room, in air conditioning, that that’s what you wanted and I’m going to remind you of that.”
Hafley wants his players to tell him “how great you want to be, tell me what your goals are.” And then “I’m going to do everything in my power; so you better be on time or [if not] you’re full of it.”
Hafley said he will “be very direct and honest with the players and don’t give them any gray area. I think the players, all the great ones that I’ve been around, they respect that. I’m going to be demanding and I’m not going to demean them; I’m just going to push them because they’re going to want to be great.”
▪ We hear Iowa’s Mark Gronowski, who was the MVP of the FCS championship game in both 2023 and 2024 for South Dakota State, met with a top Dolphins executive in recent weeks after not being invited to the NFL Combine.
He went 49-6, with 93 touchdowns and 20 interceptions in four seasons at South Dakota State.
He wasn’t as productive in his one season at Iowa, finishing with 10 TDs and 7 interceptions, with a 63% completion rate. But he rushed for a Big 10-leading 16 rushing touchdowns on 4.2 yards per carry in his one year in the Big 10, and he has good size (6-4) and strength. Gronowski was MVP of the East/West Shrine game and could be a Dolphins option in the seventh round or after the draft.
▪ ESPN’s Matt Miller served up a seven-round mock draft, an exercise that offers clues on what players could go in what range.
He has Miami taking Southern Cal receiver Makai Lemon over Tennessee cornerback Jermod McCoy, Utah offensive tackle Spencer Fano, Oregon tight end Kenyon Sadiq and Arizona State receiver Jordyn Tyson, among others, at No. 11.
Lemon had 79 receptions for 1,156 yards and 11 touchdowns last season.
“He is an elite middle-of-the-field receiver who will immediately help [Malik] Willis in his first stint as a full-time NFL starter,” Miller said. “Lemon’s yards-after-catch ability is elite and second only to his hands — he dropped only one pass in each of the past three seasons.”
At No. 30, Miller has Miami taking Tennessee cornerback Colton Hood over UF defensive tackle Caleb Banks, Auburn edge player Keldric Faulk, Alabama QB Ty Simpson, Missouri edge player Zion Young and Texas A&M guard Chase Bisontis.
Hood “has 4.44 speed and excellent ability to play the press scheme that Hafley prefers,” Miller said.
At 43, Miller has Miami taking Vanderbilt’s Eli Stowers, considered the draft’s second-best tight end behind Sadiq, with this comment:
“The Dolphins’ new-look offense will want to feature the tight end because of coordinator Bobby Slowik’s scheme, which has San Francisco roots. Stowers is an elite athlete who had record-setting broad [11 feet, 3 inches] and vertical [45½ inches] jumps at the combine. That explosiveness shows up on tape.” (Miller has UM cornerback Keionte Scott going two spots later, to Baltimore.)
Miller’s four third-round picks for Miami, with his reasons behind each pick:
At 75, Michigan edge Jaishawn Barham: “A converted linebacker with tons of potential on the edge.”
At 87, Kansas State safety VJ Payne: “An elite mover with top-tier finishing ability as a tackler.”
At 90, Texas A&M guard Trey Zuhn II: “Right guard should be open for a newcomer, and Zuhn has the technique and experience to quickly win the job. He was a left tackle at A&M, but most scouts think his future is inside, given his shorter arms [32½ inches].”
At 94, Indiana receiver Eijah Sarratt: “Miami needs a physical wideout who can win on the outside. That’s Sarratt (6-foot-3, 210 pounds), who has a route tree that often leaves him open against press coverage.
Here’s Miller’s seven-round mock draft.
▪ While general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan confirmed that he told Willis about the Jaylen Waddle trade — after Willis signed but before the trade was announced — he also added: “I’m not going to ever make it a habit to call and feel like I need to explain myself to players in the locker room for the moves that I’m going to make. That’s not how this position works. I think they would respect me less if I did. I’m going to do what I think is right for the Miami Dolphins, not what a player or players want me to do.”
But in this case, giving Willis a heads-up was sensible. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Malik; I wanted to make sure he was comfortable,” Sullivan said. “I did not want him to feel like he was being tricked. And so we had a conversation. The details of that, I’ll keep to myself. But I felt like because of the timing of everything, I owed him a conversation because he was just walking through the door and that’s how that played out.”
▪ Though the Dolphins are set at punter (likely Bradley Pinion) and kicker (Zane Gonzalez or Riley Patterson), Sullivan said: “We need to be on the lookout for long-term youthful players at those specialist positions.”
Here’s my Wednesday 6-pack with nuggets on Malik Willis and other issues.
Here’s my Wednesday piece on the Ty Simpson situation and two other quarterbacks summoned to Dolphins headquarters.
This story was originally published April 2, 2026 at 2:39 PM.
