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Head coach Jeff Hafley and the Miami Dolphins fell to 0-2 after losing to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
The Miami Dolphins may be hopeless the rest of this season.
An 0-3 start, and a season-ending injury to De’Von Achane, really slowed things down.
That doesn’t mean the Dolphins can just stop trying to get better, though. They will try to improve the roster every week, and the players on the field will do everything they can to win football games.
It also gives Miami’s front office a clear mandate to build for the future.
They made several signings on Tuesday, but one in particular was fascinating. One of the Dolphins’ newest players was a defensive player in Division I football but now plays offense in the NFL.
The Dolphins signed James Ester
The Dolphins signed a player named James Ester to their practice squad on Tuesday.
Ester is listed as an offensive lineman, but it’s not that easy.
He was a defensive lineman at Northern Illinois from 2019 to 2023. In his college career, he had 121 tackles, including nine sacks.
The Green Bay Packers signed Ester as an undrafted free agent in 2024, and he spent the last two seasons in Green Bay.
There, he worked to impress Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, who is now the Dolphins head coach.
Ester hasn’t pitched in an NFL game in his two seasons in Green Bay, however, and this season, a change has come.
The Dolphins signed Ester in the offseason, and chose to turn him into an offensive lineman.
The goal was to make him a guard, but that didn’t result in a roster spot to open the season.
Ester was really dinged in the preseason, and so when the Dolphins cut him, they did so with an injury adjustment.
Apparently, Ester should now be healthy enough to return to Miami’s practice squad. This is actually a good outcome for him, as he hasn’t been working on the transition to being an NFL offensive lineman for very long. It will give him a chance to continue trying to grow in that regard — and eventually, maybe the rest of football will know if the Dolphins were right in their hunch to move Ester to the other side of the ball.
Dolphins Training
The Dolphins also brought a bunch of other players for Tuesday’s workout, and the list was almost as impressive as it included four running backs.
Following Achane’s injury, it makes sense that the Dolphins would consider other RB signings.
Damien Martinez, Hassan Haskins, Kenny McIntosh and Elijah Tau-Tolliver were the four backs who worked out on Tuesday.
The Dolphins had yet to make any signings as of Wednesday morning for their backfield.
Billy Hayen Billy Heyen is a Heavy contributor focused on the NFL and MLB. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who spent his senior year following Jim Boeheim’s basketball team across the country. His reporting work also includes extensive work for The Sporting News, the Sandusky Register and the Democrat & Chronicle of Rochester. Sports writing ventures also led to personal coverage of the Buffalo Sabres, Cleveland Guardians, US men’s national soccer team and various minor league baseball stories. More about Billy Heyen