The Miami Dolphins pass rush is set to be the highlight of a team looking to avenge a wasted season. The team finished under .500 for the first time in head coach Mike McDaniel’s career. Now with a healthy pass rush, the head coach can’t hardly contain his excitement.
“I feel myself smiling,” coach Mike McDaniel told ESPN. “I think having you know both Bradley and Jaelan back is something … it’s a different presence that I think has been understated and has been gigantic.”
Both edge rushers Jaelan Phillips and Bradley Chubb look to be fully healthy by Week 1. If that is the case, it will be the first time since November of 2023 that the two elite pass rushers share the field together. The duos injury luck has been dismal, with the two combining for just 134 total snaps played during the entirety of last year’s 8-9 season.
Chop Robinson was just a rookie last season, but he finished the year on a massive high note. All six of his sacks in his first year campaign came after Week 8. The young defensive end really hit his groove in the second half of the season and now he is excited to join forces with the two man wrecking crew.
“I’m super excited. Just imagining the three of us on the field at the same time,” Robinson told the Sun Sentinel, “or just me and JP, or JP and Chubb at the same time. It’s kind of hard for tackles to (say), ‘All right, you’ve got to study JP, you’ve got to study Chubb, you’ve got to study me.’”
Jaelan Phillips And Bradley Chubb On Perspective
Bradley Chubb didn’t touch the field in 2024. He suffered an Achilles tear in 2023, and although he was cleared to return in the last few weeks of an already lost season, the team thought it best to maximize his recovery. Now, finally back on the field, gratitude isn’t lost on him.
“I’m not taking anything for granted, man,” Chubb told Marcel Louis-Jacques on Friday. “Going through OTAs and being on the side during OTAs is two totally different things. When you’re actually just putting in that blood, sweat and tears with the guys, that’s how you bond, that’s how you connect… Just being able to be out here, running around and physically getting up on guys, dapping them up like, ‘Good job, I’m about to go do the same thing.’ That just brings a different energy…”
Phillips is in the same boat, as he tore his Achilles in 2023, fully recovered, and took the field in 2024. But just four weeks into the season, Phillips suffered yet another season ending injury, tearing his ACL. It has not been easy, but Phillips told Louis-Jacques that he too is in a good place.
“Obviously, I went through a lot over the last couple of years, so I felt like I needed to take a little bit of time to regather myself,” he said. “It allowed me to come back with a lot more clarity and focus and just motivation… I feel like right now I’m in a really good place. Feeling great obviously physically, but also from a mental standpoint just ready to get after it.”
All Three Players Ranked in PFF’s Top 32
Pro Football Focus has been carrying on their off season tradition of ranking every player in the NFL based on their own analytics based scores. The company is the trusted grading system of the NFL and NCAA and their numbers are used by every organization to analyze player performance.
In PFF’s ranking of the top 32 pass rushers in the league, the Miami Dolphins were the only team to have more than two players included. Jaelan Phillips was ranked the highest, at 18. Bradley Chubb wasn’t far behind, at 21. And Chop Robinson rounded off the trio, landing at 27.
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