Malik Willis Faces New Pressure As Dolphins Prepare For Patrick Mahomes | NFL

The Miami Dolphins head into Week 3 at Hard Rock Stadium without a single lead recorded this season. Two games in, and they remain the only NFL team yet to hold an advantage at any point. Now they will face Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, and the questions around quarterback Malik Willis are getting louder. Head coach Jeff Hafley has publicly flagged inconsistency in Willis’ game, and the numbers from the first two weeks are hard to ignore.

Is Malik Willis playing well enough for the Miami Dolphins?

Not by the numbers. Willis has completed just 58 per cent of his passes through two weeks, 29 of 50, which puts him near the bottom of the league among active starters. He has not compensated for that low rate by moving the ball downfield either. His passing yardage sits in the bottom half of the NFL. After the Week 2 loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Hafley was direct about what needs to change. “I just think it’s the consistency right now and it’s just getting comfortable with the guys around him and getting in rhythm. So the drop-back pass, which unfortunately we’ve been in two games where we’ve needed to drop back and pass for the latter half of the second half, and when they know you’re going to drop back, it’s going through the progression, it’s being on time, it’s having the receivers be on time. I think those are the things early in the year there’s a lot of quarterbacks working on,” Hafley said.

That is measured, coach-speak. But for a 27-year-old quarterback in his first season with Miami, there is not much runway left to find rhythm. A matchup against Mahomes on Sunday is not a soft landing pad for a quarterback still working through timing issues.

Is the Dolphins offensive line making things harder for Willis?

Partly, yes. Right tackle Austin Jackson has repeatedly been isolated against top-tier pass rushers, and the offensive line as a whole has struggled to give Willis clean pockets. Even the evaluation of young starters like Kadyn Proctor and Jonah Savaiinaea has been complicated by the unit’s inconsistency. Dolphins on SI’s Tyler Carmona put it plainly: “Willis has left throws on the field. He’s also been inaccurate on plays where personnel and play design offer no excuse. At the same time, Miami continues to put their new quarterback in situations where the margin for error disappears almost immediately… Sometimes Willis actually misses the answer. Other times, the personnel or the construction of the play makes completing it considerably more difficult. That doesn’t absolve him. But at some point, help the guy out.”

That is the real tension heading into Sunday. Willis needs to be better, but Miami’s setup has made it harder to know exactly how much better. Against Kansas City’s defence, that distinction will not matter. The Chiefs will apply pressure regardless, and Willis will have to respond.