Greg Dulcich Camp Update — August 31: A Fifth Tight End Arrives on Waivers

After a week in which no reporting mentioned him at all, Greg Dulcich's file has facts again: he made the initial 53-man roster Miami announced Sunday, one of four tight ends kept along with Seydou Traore, Will Kacmarek and Ben Sims, per Grace O'Donnell on the team's official site. Ethan Conner, signed on August 20-fourth, was waived Saturday, and Jeremiah Franklin went at Sunday's cutdown, per the team's announcements and transaction wire. Then, a day after settling the room at four, Miami claimed tight end Justin Joly off waivers from Denver, per Josh Alper at NBC Sports — one of seven players Miami claimed that day. Dolphins On SI's framing of the fit is direct: Joly lands "in a more inexperienced tight end room with less established competition," per Tyler Carmona. Whether his arrival costs any current tight end a spot is unreported — the corresponding moves for Monday's seven claims are named nowhere reachable — so we state the addition and stop there.

The room's other news is an injury. Kacmarek — the third-round rookie the June read treated as the real threat to Dulcich's snaps — is "week to week" and "will be out this week," per Hafley's Saturday press conference transcript on the team site. Miami kept him on the 53 anyway rather than using an injured-reserve slot.

Last week's episode asked whether Dulcich would start and draw targets in Friday's finale, and how many tight ends would survive cutdown. The second question got a direct answer: four, and then a fifth arrived. The first got none — no Dulcich snap, catch or target appears in any of three reachable finale accounts, and no full receiving box score was reachable, so that is a limit of the coverage rather than a confirmed zero, the same honest framing this file used last week.

For anyone new to it: the June read said Dulcich out-gained every returning Miami wideout last season on a real late-year run — by our numbers from last season, 26 catches for 335 yards — while the target tree above him lost its top three receivers at once, and the counterargument was Miami's own draft board: two rookie tight ends selected behind a one-year veteran is a franchise saying compete. The franchise just said it again, on the waiver wire. The opportunity case is intact; the competition case keeps getting new entrants. We'll pick this thread back up once the room settles.

_Data via nflverse._