OK, everybody can forget about this idea — farfetched as it was — that the Miami Dolphins were going to finish the 2026 season at 0-7 and we can at least hit the pause button on this idea that the Malik Willis experiment already should be deemed a failure.

The Dolphins got that elusive first victory of the Jeff Hafley era Sunday and of course it was going to come against the New York Jets, just has it had in 2007 after Miami started off 0-7.

And while there were plenty of stars on this day — welcome back, Caleb Douglas — Willis absolutely was front and center.

His final passing numbers weren't necessarily overwhelming as he finished with 208 yards on 14 completions, but he provided exactly the kind of quarterback we saw during his stints with the Green Bay Packers that convinced Hafley and Jon-Eric Sullivan to bring him over.

It was the kind of performance that would make the Dolphins look to another position with their first-round pick in the 2027 NFL draft, a pick that still figures to be pretty high, and maybe we can stop debating — at least for a little while — whether it should be Drew Mestermaker or Arch Manning or Darian Mensah.

All along, we said Willis deserved the benefit of the doubt and a longer look before making definitive judgements about his viability as a starting quarterback, but if nothing else he bought himself more time with that performance — not that we would suggest he's cemented anything, either, just off one game.

As for the win and that silly notion the Dolphins could go 0-17, did anybody really think the Dolphins wouldn't be able to improve as the season moved along.

And, as we pointed out on numerous occasions, if the 2019 Dolphins could win five games after being outscored 163-26 (basically an average of 41-7) in their four games, yeah the 2026 Dolphins pretty safely were going to win a game here and there.

OTHER THOUGHTS ABOUT DOUGLAS AND THE OFFENSE

-- Douglas had only two catches in his return after missing three games with an ankle injury, but they both showed why he's the most exciting player on offense (outside of Willis) with De'Von Achane on IR. His first touchdown showed off his route-running ability as he faked the Jets cornerback out of his cleats with a quick jerky movement and then there was the fabulous YAC work on what became the game-winning touchdown. And how sweet was it that the Jets player he beat to turn a short reception into a long touchdown was none other than Minkah Fitzpatrick.

-- Major hats off to the running game for being able to close out the win after the Jets cut their lead with 3:24 left. It was five straight runs that produced two first downs, starting with a 14-yarder by Ollie Gordon II and punctuated by Malik Willis' sneak on fourth-and-1 where Gordon played a big role with his push of Willis. And even though it was risky, we tweeted before the call that the Dolphins should go for the win on that fourth-and-1 instead of going the conservative route and trying to pin the Jets deep. That's the kind of aggressiveness we want to see from Hafley moving forward.

-- Since we already mentioned Gordon, he continues to shine in the absence of De'Von Achane and looks like a feature back himself.

-- A couple of changes we noticed with the offense was that there weren't as man deep shots as in previous weeks, and that led to a better completion percentage for Willis. His decision-making was better, his scrambling again was a big factor, and he showed great awareness with his slide in bounds near the end of the first half to make sure the Jets wouldn't have much time left after they scored to make it 21-7.

THOUGHTS ON DEFENSE AND SPECIAL TEAMS

-- It's pretty refreshing that we won't be talking about bad special teams play this week, isn't it?

-- It's actually ironic that the Dolphins ended up winning by three and the only missed field goal came from former Miami kicker Jason Sanders.

-- The Dolphins' new kicker Zane Gonzalez did a good job of putting the ball into the end zone on kickoffs, which limited the Jets' kickoff return opportunities and we'll take the defense starting at the 35.

-- The pass defense again wasn't great, but the secondary is the youngest unit on defense, so maybe it's to be expected to a certain degree. And that was a big-time veteran play by safety Michael Taaffe on his pick when he totally read the eyes of Geno Smith as he was scrambling.

-- Another big reason for the three-point win, of course, was the goal-line stand culminated by Chop Robinson's third-down sack when he absolutely didn't bite on Smith's play fake and Zayne Anderson took away Smith's short outlet. But it was Zach Sieler who made the big first-down tackle to start the whole thing, part of a really good performance by the D-tackle.

-- Yes, we have to factor in the quality (or lack thereof) of the opposition when dissecting this first Dolphins win, but then we also have to look at the quality of the teams against which they lost. So it works both ways. The Dolphins step up again in competition next week when they play host to the New England Patriots, but we'll continue to say the Dolphins will win a game or two this season that they're not supposed to win.

-- This game again the Jets was one of those that was deemed most winnable for the Dolphins, and that's how it played out. Now we don't have to hear anymore about going 0-17, we can table the draft talk for a bit because who knows exactly how high they'll wind up picking in the first round, and maybe most importantly we can just sit back and continue watching the development of the players before making premature determinations.