The Miami Dolphins’ 2025 season was less than ideal as the team stumbled its way to a 7-10 record. Miami now heads into the 2026 offseason with changes across the front office and coaching staff, including a new general manager, Jon-Eric Sullivan, and a new head coach, Jeff Hafley. They have question marks up and down the roster, and they have a mess of a salary cap.

While 2025 was a rough season for Miami, not everything was miserable. The Dolphins made several offseason moves, including signing free agents to bolster their roster. Which free agent acquisition was the best?

Cornerback Jack Jones and offensive lineman Daniel Brunskill could be in the conversation as Miami’s best free agent addition. Jones started all 17 games for Miami, recording 77 tackles with two forced fumbles, six passes defensed, and one interception. Brunskill played in 16 games, starting just five times, but when the Dolphins introduced him to the lineup as a sixth offensive lineman, the running game took off. He was instrumental to Miami finding any sense of identity on offense this past year.

But I will suggest kicker Riley Patterson may be the right answer here. Originally signed to the practice squad at the end of training camp, the addition of Patterson filled a vacancy created when incumbent Jason Sanders sustained an injury that turned out to be a season-long issue. A journeyman kicker, Patterson spent time with five other teams over the previous four seasons before catching on with Miami. As the Dolphins’ kicker, Patterson set a new team record for field goal accuracy, converting on 93.1 percent of his kicks – surpassing Sanders’ 92.3 percent from the 2020 season.

Note: As was pointed out to me in the comments, I originally omitted cornerback Rasul Douglas from this list. Douglas signed a one-year contract with Miami and immediately slotted into the starting lineup. He played in 15 games, starting 13, with 62 tackles, a sack, a forced fumble, 13 passes defensed, and two interceptions. Complete oversight on my part. I still would go with Patterson as my top choice, but Douglas should have been in the article.

Who do you have as Miami’s best free agent addition from last year? Let us know in the comments below.

Thelma Gibson, a South Florida trailblazer in health care, education and community leadership, has died at 99.

Gibson passed away Wednesday at her home, surrounded by family and a priest, according to her niece, Misty Brown. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Born in 1926 in Coconut Grove, Gibson grew up with a strong emphasis on education. She said her mother encouraged her and her siblings to pursue schooling so they would not have to work low-paying domestic jobs.

After graduating from nursing school in 1947, Gibson was hired at Jackson Memorial Hospital. But when she arrived, she said she was told she could not work in the operating room because of segregation and was instead directed to gain experience on the hospital’s “colored floors.”

Undeterred, Gibson built a nursing career that spanned more than three decades, saying she cherished the time she spent caring for others.

Beyond her medical work, Gibson served on numerous boards and committees and became a key community leader. She founded Miami-Dade County’s first Women’s Chamber of Commerce and, following the race riots that devastated Liberty City in the early 1980s, she and her husband launched Black Investors of Dade County to help rebuild the community.

Family members said Gibson considered her service to her community and her church, Christ Episcopal, among her greatest accomplishments.

Gibson often described herself simply as a proud American committed to helping others — a legacy her family says will endure for generations.

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New bodycam video shows a fatal police shooting in Miami back in 2023 as prosecutors say the officer was legally justified in the killing.

The footage was released this week after the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office determined the Oct. 11, 2023 shooting of 20-year-old Arnicious Xavier Odom, Jr. was justified.

According to a Feb. 3 close-out memo from the state attorney’s office, Odom and another man had been seen jaywalking on Northwest 2nd Avenue near Northwest 60th Street while wearing ski masks and hoodies.

A detective approached and the other man was found with a loaded gun in his pants but Odom fled on foot, prompting a pursuit, the memo said.

The bodycam footage shows Det. Sthephany Canizares running after Odom with her weapon drawn.

At one point, Odom threw a gun over a fence and then hopped over the fence at a field at Miami Edison Senior High School.

The memo said Canizares ordered him not to pick the gun up but Odom went to pick it up and that’s when Canizares shot and killed him.

“I told him not to go for that gun!” Canizares is heard telling other officers in the footage.

The state attorney’s office said Canizares’ actions in shooting Odom were legally justified because “it was reasonable to believe that he posed an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to the officers,” the memo said.

After the shooting, Odom’s mother, Antionette Jones, told NBC6 she wanted answers.

“Witnesses out there said that my baby was running across the field and collapsed,” she said. “If he was running from you, what harm can he do to you? What can he do? Why didn’t you tase him?”