Kelly: Kion Smith’s release is a healthy part of Dolphins’ rebuild | Opinion
The Miami Dolphins pulled the plug on a four-year investment this week, moving on from Kion Smith.
Smith’s an NFL journeyman at this point in his career, and he will likely find work in the coming days, if not weeks because of how shallow the NFL’s offensive lineman talent pool is.
However, Monday’s release is a good sign because it’s the first piece of evidence we have that people whose limitations and lackluster play that held back South Florida’s NFL franchise in the past will not be tolerated.
Turnstiles such as Smith, who got abused most of the offseason program while filling in for injured starting right tackle Austin Jackson, will be shown the door. And even though I’m of the opinion that there isn’t a quality backup offensive tackle on the roster, it shows that new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan and head coach Jeff Hafley have created a standard.
Smith’s release is a smidgen of proof they can evaluate players properly.
While Smith was a pet project for former general manager Chris Grier, who once told the media teams were making trade offers for Smith before the 2024 season, he wasn’t a good NFL player.
In this period of practices without pads, Smith made Chop Robinson seem like he was headed to the Football Hall of Fame.
Robinson, the pass-rushing specialist the Dolphins selected in the first round of the 2024 draft was able to slip Smith’s blocks with ease in just about every practice I watched this summer.
While that’s encouraging for Robinson, who has shown promise as a pass rusher the past two seasons but needs to improve as an edge-setter to tighten up Miami’s run defense, it was a bad sign for the Dolphins’ offensive line because Smith was that unit’s top backup tackle.
And with Jackson sidelined by the foot injury he sustained last year — and is still rehabbing — and the realization that Jackson’s often injured, Miami needed someone reliable to serve as the backup to Patrick Paul and Jackson.
That player might eventually become Kadyn Proctor, the team’s 2026 first-round pick, who played left tackle at the University of Alabama. But for now Miami wants him to spend his rookie season playing left guard.
That means a decent backup tackle is needed, but the work Miami did on the field this past month proved it wasn’t Smith.
While patience is needed in this rebuild, there better be signs of upside on display, and that was no longer the case with Smith, who struggled as Miami’s starting right guard early last season before he was replaced by Cole Strange.
After Strange, a former first-round pick Miami claimed off waivers early last season, replaced Smith in the middle of Miami’s 31-21 loss to Buffalo, Miami’s offensive line steadily improved.
Smith was eventually waived later that season and put back on the practice squad, which is where his NFL career began in Miami. But the Dolphins still made a 23-game investment into the former Fayetteville State standout.
Miami finally cut its losses five weeks before training camp started, and that’s what this 2026 season should be about.
Sullivan and Hafley need to quickly identify who can play, invest in them, discover who can’t help this franchise and move on just as fast.
Four seasons is a long time to live off potential, and this franchise no longer has that kind of time, and those roster spots to waste. Hopefully Sullivan and his staff can pick another young offensive lineman to invest in, and he will produce a more favorable return for that time and money than Smith did.
This franchise has done this for years with players such as Terence Fede, Isaiah Ford, Rob Jones, Channing Tindall, Erik Ezukanma and Cameron Goode, the last of which is still on the roster, beginning his fifth season with the Dolphins.
There’s a short list of players on the Dolphins roster now who might find themselves in th exact same spot as Smith, unemployed, if they don’t tighten up, and turn the volume up on their performance.
The juice needs to be worth the squeeze.
