Omar Kelly: Replacing Zach Sieler could weaken Dolphins defense

Omar Kelly, Miami Herald on Nov 11, 2026

Published in Football

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MIAMI — Malik Willis is being put on ice.

The Miami Dolphins decided it was better for the team’s starting quarterback to rest his troublesome groin injury for a month instead of having him play through the pain, potentially letting the injury worsen.

As painful as that decision was to make, it wasn’t the most painful loss this Dolphins team, and their fan base suffered this week.

On Tuesday, South Florida’s talent-starved, 1-7 football team learned that the one veteran this inexperienced roster had been leaned on — on and off the field — all season was done for the year.

Zach Sieler tore a muscle in his bicep on the first series of Sunday’s 19-9 loss to the Detroit Lions, and continued to play through the unreported injury.

He toughed it out, because that’s exactly who this team captain is. But the injury was more serious than Sieler initially thought, and subsequently ended his season with nine more games to go. As a result, one of the few reliable units on the 2026 Dolphins team — the defensive line, which set a tone for the team’s physicality — must fill a massive void.

“It’s tough losing a guy like Zach because a lot of those defensive guys leaned on him,” coach Jeff Hafley said. “He was playing at a high level, and what he was doing for a bunch of guys was cool.”

Sieler was consistently taking on double-teams, drawing them more than all but a handful of the rest of the NFL defensive tackles.

He was setting up edge rushers like Chop Robinson and Josh Uche to eat on twists and stunts, helping those wide-nine rushers get free for sacks.

He was directing traffic on the defensive line seconds before the ball got snapped, providing Miami’s trio of second-year defensive tackles guidance on what was coming from opposing offenses.

“Zach was a big part of our defense and him not being there means everybody has to step up,” nose tackle Jordan Phillips said. “There is always room to improve and the main goal is to get better so I can add more value to the organization.”

Sieler was a major contributing factor in why the Dolphins’ defense was holding opponents to 3.8 yards per carry. Only seven teams allowed fewer yards per carry than the Dolphins heading into Sunday’s road game against the Indianapolis Colts, which features three-time Pro Bowl tailback Jonathan Taylor.

“We’re going to ask a lot of those young guys to step up,” Hafley warned, referring to Kenneth Grant, the Dolphins’ 2025 first- round pick, Phillips, Zeek Biggers, a 2025 seventh-round pick who has started two games this season, and logged his first NFL sack of the season last week, and Keith Cooper Jr., a standout from this past training camp, whom the Dolphins claimed off the Carolina Panthers practice squad on Tuesday, returning him to Miami’s 53-man roster on Wednesday.

As promising as that foursome of 300-pounders might be, none of them have come close to making the type of impact Sieler has throughout his eight-year Dolphins tenure, which began late in 2019 when the former Baltimore Ravens’ sixth-round pick was claimed off the waiver wire in this franchise’s last rebuilt.

Sieler, who contributed 24 tackles and two sacks in the 375 defensive snaps he has played this season, has been a starter, if not a star since, anchoring the defensive front.

He’s the type of player, person, leader whom the casual fan won’t miss until he’s gone.

And now (deep sigh) he’s gone!

Hafley clearly knows Sieler’s on and off field value, which is why his season-ending injury motivated the first-year head coach to elevate another defender to captain status, as he named Uche a captain in front of the team on Wednesday.

A massive leadership void needed to be filled by someone, anyone.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Sieler’s absence created an all-hands-on-deck situation for the Dolphins since the defense has been the only unit consistently propping up this rebuilt roster, and now the linchpin has been pulled.

We will soon learn whose hands are big enough to hold up the Dolphins’ defensive front.

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