Jake Boals – May 4, 2026
Out With the Old: Dolphins Cut Seven as Rookie Minicamp Looms
Miami clears roster space ahead of Friday’s rookie minicamp, releasing seven players in a wave of moves that signals the full transition to the post-draft roster.
Monday, May 4, 2026 | Miami, FL
The 2026 NFL Draft is over, the undrafted free agents have been signed, and now comes the unglamorous but necessary business of roster math. The Miami Dolphins announced seven cuts on Monday, clearing space for their incoming rookie class and setting the stage for Friday’s rookie minicamp — the first real look at the new-look Dolphins under their revamped front office and coaching staff.
📋 The Seven Cuts: Who’s Gone and Why
None of these are household names, but each departure tells a story about where this franchise is heading.
🔴 Taybor Pepper | Long Snapper | Released Pepper’s second stint in Miami lasted less than two months. The veteran long-snapper — who appeared in all 17 games for the San Francisco 49ers in 2024 and had previously played for the Dolphins back in 2019 — was signed in March but never had a realistic path to the 53-man roster once the draft concluded. With rookie Tucker Addington now the sole long-snapper on the depth chart, Pepper’s release was, as Yahoo Sports put it, a pure “formality.”
🔴 Isaiah Johnson | Cornerback | Waived/Failed Physical Johnson’s release carries the most unfortunate circumstances of the group. The cornerback — one of three 2025 roster holdovers among the seven cuts — tore his ACL in practice late last December, ending any realistic chance of passing a physical this spring. The failed physical designation makes the waiver procedurally clean but doesn’t soften the blow for a player who was fighting for a roster spot before the injury struck.
🔴 Jason Maitre | Cornerback | Waived/Failed Physical Maitre never played a single snap in 2025, spending the entire season on injured reserve after suffering an Achilles tear during the offseason program. Like Johnson, he was waived with a failed physical designation — a reflection of the severity of the injury and the uncertainty of his recovery timeline heading into 2026.
🔴 Derrick McLendon | OLB/Edge | Waived Of all seven cuts, McLendon’s is the one that stings most from a pure football perspective. Yahoo Sports was direct: “The McLendon decision is the most painful. He clearly has potential as a player but did not get opportunities until late in the season. And now, he’s a part of the collateral from a regime change.” McLendon showed genuine promise during 2025 training camp — enough that several media members expected him to make the final roster — but was waived and re-signed to the practice squad instead. With Miami drafting pass rushers Trey Moore and Max Llewellyn in the 2026 draft, there simply was no room for a holdover from the previous regime.
🔴 Zack Kuntz | Tight End | Waived Kuntz had been an intriguing low-cost signing earlier in the offseason — his size and athleticism made him a project worth monitoring, even if his time as a seventh-round pick with the New York Jets never translated into production. The Dolphins’ decision to draft Will Kacmarek and Seydou Traore at tight end in the 2026 draft effectively ended his Miami tenure before it began.
🔴 K.C. Ossai | Inside Linebacker | Waived Ossai’s release follows the same logic: Miami drafted Jacob Rodriguez and Kyle Louis at linebacker, and a veteran fighting for a bottom-of-roster spot was never going to survive the numbers game once the draft class arrived.
🔴 Seth Vernon | Punter | Waived Like Pepper, Vernon’s release was a formality. Veteran Bradley Pinion — with a massive experience advantage — was always the prohibitive favorite to win the punter job. The only remaining specialist competition on the roster is now between kickers Riley Patterson and Zane Gonzalez, with Patterson the frontrunner after setting a franchise record for field goal accuracy last season.
🔢 The Roster Math
Before Monday’s moves, the Dolphins carried 86 players on their active roster — with French-born, London-raised tight end Seydou Traore exempt from the 90-man limit via the International Player Pathway Program. The seven cuts bring the roster to approximately 79 players, with at least 10 undrafted free agents still to be formally added when rookie minicamp opens Friday.
Miami’s 13-man 2026 draft class includes: Kadyn Proctor, Chris Johnson, Jacob Rodriguez, Caleb Douglas, Will Kacmarek, Chris Bell, Trey Moore, Michael Taaffe, Kevin Coleman Jr., Seydou Traore, DJ Campbell, Max Llewellyn, and one additional selection.
🔭 The Big Picture
These cuts won’t be the last. The Dolphins are in the middle of a genuine roster overhaul — one that began with the high-profile departures of Tyreek Hill and Bradley Chubb and has continued with a systematic clearing of older, more expensive contracts throughout the offseason.
What Monday’s moves confirm is that the transition is now complete at the bottom of the roster too. The regime change is real, the new draft class is in the building, and rookie minicamp on Friday, May 8 will be the first official look at what this new-era Dolphins team is actually made of.
Sources:
NFL Trade Rumors — Dolphins Cutting Seven Players (May 4, 2026)
SI.com / Yahoo Sports — Breaking Down the Dolphins Monday Roster Moves (May 4, 2026)
Yardbarker — Dolphins Cutting Seven Players (May 4, 2026)
