The Dolphins first win Jets result is finally in the books: Miami beat New York 28-25 at MetLife Stadium on Sunday for its first victory of the season, as Malik Willis threw two touchdown passes to rookie Caleb Douglas, ran for another score, and sealed the game with a fourth-and-1 quarterback sneak inside the final two minutes. Miami (1-5) had not led at any point in any game all season before Sunday. It never trailed in this one.
How Miami finally led — and finally finished
Miami scored touchdowns on its first two drives for the first time this season. Willis opened the scoring with a 7-yard touchdown pass to Douglas, who was returning after missing three games with an ankle injury. The Jets answered through Geno Smith's 13-yard touchdown pass to Mason Taylor, but Miami responded with a 14-play, 60-yard drive capped by Ollie Gordon II's 1-yard run for a 14-7 lead, and Willis's touchdown run stretched it to 21-7 by half-time.
The second half tested whether this was a new Dolphins team or the same one that had found ways to lose for five weeks. Smith cut the gap, Miami stalled at the Jets' 1-yard line sequence that ended in a field goal for New York instead of a tie, and then Willis found Douglas again — a short pass the rookie turned into a 63-yard touchdown for 28-17. Smith hit Taylor for a second touchdown and a two-point conversion with 3:24 left to make it 28-25, but Miami never gave the ball back: Gordon's 14-yard run and Willis's 2-yard sneak on fourth-and-1 from the Jets' 49, with New York out of timeouts, ran out the clock.
The numbers behind the win
Willis completed 14 of 21 passes for 208 yards with no interceptions and a 130.7 rating, adding 37 rushing yards on eight carries. Gordon ran for 103 yards and a touchdown on 25 carries as Miami rushed for 156 yards overall. Douglas caught only two passes — both for touchdowns. For the Jets (2-5), Smith finished 23 of 30 for 287 yards, three touchdowns and one interception; Braelon Allen, starting again for the injured Breece Hall, ran for 104 yards, and Omar Cooper Jr. caught five passes for 115 yards and a touchdown. The stat that will follow New York all week is a coaching one: the loss was Aaron Glenn's eighth straight against AFC East opponents (0-8), and the Jets' fifth defeat in six games.
Why this matters
A 1-5 team beating a 2-5 team is not, on paper, a result that moves a season. The context is what makes it matter. Miami came off its bye as one of the league's last winless teams, with a first-year head coach in Jeff Hafley, a rebuilt roster described in local coverage as the youngest in the league, and a quarterback in Willis playing on a three-year contract the franchise chose after moving on from its previous era. Losing at MetLife — to a Jets team that was a 4.5-point home favourite — would have made Miami 0-6 for the first time since 2019 and turned the rest of the season into an argument about the rebuild itself. Winning, and winning by leading wire to wire, gives Hafley his first victory and gives the rebuild a proof point: the ground game travelled, the rookie receiver delivered on his return, and the quarterback closed a one-score game on the road.
For the Jets, the mirror image is brutal. This was, by their own schedule logic, the soft landing before games against Patrick Mahomes's Chiefs and Josh Allen's Bills — the kind of fixture a 2-4 team has to bank. Instead New York fell behind 21-7 to a winless opponent at home, rallied, and still lost, and the questions that follow Glenn — 19 losses in his first 24 games, winless in the division — get louder, not quieter. Critics of Miami will fairly note that one win over a struggling Jets side proves little; supporters will answer that you cannot win a second game until you win a first, and that Miami's came with its first lead, its first two-touchdown opening and its first complete closing drive of the year, all on the same afternoon. Both readings are true, which is exactly why the next game matters more than this one.
What happens next
Miami hosts New England in Week 8 with a chance to turn a milestone into a streak, and with Douglas fit again and Gordon established as the lead back, the offensive shape that worked at MetLife is available to repeat. The Jets stay home to face Las Vegas, at 2-5 and with the division record at 0-8, in a game that now carries a must-win weight no Week 8 fixture should. Sunday in the AFC East also reshaped the wider Week 7 picture — see how the day's other results landed in our coverage of Baltimore's quarterback situation against Cincinnati and the division races in our Week 6 NFL review.
Sources
Reuters / Field Level Media, October 25, 2026: "Malik Willis guides Dolphins past Jets for long-sought first win" (Willis 14 of 21 for 208 yards, two TD passes to Douglas, one rushing TD; fourth-and-1 sneak sealed it; Gordon 103 yards; Smith 23 of 30 for 287 yards and three TDs; Jets' eighth straight divisional loss). NBC Sports / Pro Football Talk, October 25, 2026: "Dolphins hold off Jets 28-25 for their first win of the season" (21-7 half-time lead; Glenn 0-8 against divisional opponents; Jets 2-5). Associated Press via BVM Sports / Sportsnet, October 25, 2026: NFL Week 7 roundup (Dolphins avoided a first 0-6 start since 2019; first win for coach Jeff Hafley). Palm Beach Post live coverage, October 25, 2026 (Willis 130.7 rating; Douglas returned from an ankle injury; Miami never trailed and had never led in any game this season before Sunday). Sportradar final record, October 25, 2026: Jets 25, Dolphins 28 at MetLife Stadium (quarter scores 7-14, 0-7, 7-0, 11-7).