{"id":33989,"date":"2025-03-18T03:41:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T03:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=33989"},"modified":"2025-03-18T03:41:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T03:41:28","slug":"ranking-the-miami-dolphins-top-five-moves-through-the-first-week-of-2025-nfl-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=33989","title":{"rendered":"Ranking the Miami Dolphins&#8217; top five moves through the first week of 2025 NFL Free Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The first week of free agency is now in the books, and the\u00a0Miami Dolphins&#8217; roster has some new faces on the roster.<\/p>\n<p>Miami mostly kept things on the cheaper side, although they opened up the pocketbook for one player on a decent-sized multi-year deal.\u00a0 The rest have been mainly low-dollar prove-it contracts on players with significant injury question marks.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how I rank the Dolphins&#8217; top five signings so far this free agency period.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"5-s-ifeatu-melifonwu\">5) S Ifeatu Melifonwu<\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;d like this signing a lot more if the injury questions weren&#8217;t so pressing &#8211; and this wasn&#8217;t such a disastrous franchise when it comes to never-ending injuries.\u00a0 Injuries are often freak luck, but putting an injury-prone player into an injury-prone franchise worries me.<\/p>\n<p>That said, if he&#8217;s healthy and reverts to 2023 form, this could be a terrific signing at a great value (1-year, $4 million).\u00a0 But he and the team are both going to have to buck the odds for it to happen.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"4-p-ryan-stonehouse\">4) P Ryan Stonehouse<\/h3>\n<p>Jake Bailey has been just ok.\u00a0 Stonehouse has a far higher ceiling with a big leg &#8211; he led the NFL in yards per punt in 2022 and 2023.\u00a0 If the net punting can improve from 2024 (38.3) to match his big leg, Miami could see a significant step forward in one of their special teams units next year.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"3-s-ashtyn-davis\">3) S Ashtyn Davis<\/h3>\n<p>Another affordable deal on a safety who can give Miami something they haven&#8217;t had &#8211; turnovers.\u00a0 Davis had two picks of the Dolphins back in January in the Jets&#8217; 32-20 win over Miami.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll see this offseason and in the preseason how the rest of his game translates in Anthony Weaver&#8217;s system, but there&#8217;s no doubt the ball skills are there, and that&#8217;s something Miami has desperately needed.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"2-wr-nick-westbrook-ikhine\">2) WR Nick Westbrook-Ikhine<\/h3>\n<p>The Dolphins have desperately needed more size in their wide receiver room, and the 6&#8217;2&#8243; Westbrook-Ikhine gives it to them.\u00a0 He has a knack for finding the end zone &#8211; 9 touchdowns in 2024 &#8211; and gives Miami a big target in short yardage situations.\u00a0 A good fit for what Miami lacked in its offense.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"1-iol-james-daniels\">1) IOL James Daniels<\/h3>\n<p>The only signing that Miami made for any significant contract number, Miami inked the former Pittsburgh Steeler to a three-year, $24 million deal.\u00a0 With it, the Dolphins have managed to find one of their answers to their two open starting guard spots.<\/p>\n<p>Daniels &#8211; like just about every other incoming free agent &#8211; comes in with a question mark of his own after tearing his Achilles last season.\u00a0 However, Miami feels good enough about his progress to believe he&#8217;ll be ready to go once the pads come on in July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first week of free agency is now in the books, and the\u00a0Miami Dolphins&#8217; roster has some new faces on the roster. Miami mostly kept things on&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ranking the Miami Dolphins&#039; top five moves through the first week of 2025 NFL Free Agency - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=33989\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ranking the Miami Dolphins&#039; top five moves through the first week of 2025 NFL Free Agency - 24\/7 News America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The first week of free agency is now in the books, and the\u00a0Miami Dolphins&#8217; roster has some new faces on the roster. 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