The Miami Dolphins spent Sunday recovering from the complete beatdown handed to them on Saturday by the New York Giants. While the game, the second of the three-game preseason schedule in 2026, may not count for the team’s season record, the individual performances could go a long way toward deciding who makes the roster and how the depth chart shakes out. The game also could impact the regular season as injuries start to take their toll on the roster.
Rookie linebacker Trey Moore left the game on Saturday with an apparent left leg injury. He pressured Giants quarterback Jameis Winston, leaping to try to deflect the pass as it was thrown, before landing awkwardly. He immediately went to the ground, and, after trainers came out on the field to look at him, he was helped off the field and was unable to put weight on his leg.
On Sunday, head coach Mike McDaniel spoke with the media and said of Moore’s injury, “Trey will miss some time. I don’t see him back being soon. I’m not sure how long it will be. I think we’ll determine that later when all the testing is done. But Trey will definitely miss some time with an ankle.”
South Florida Sun Sentinel reporter David Furones suggests the injury could land Moore on the injured reserve list to start the season:
With roster cuts coming in a week, Moore will be a candidate to take one of two injured reserve spots the Dolphins can use on players. Such a designation would automatically put Moore out for the first four weeks of the regular season before he’s eligible to return to practice.
If it’s determined he will miss about that much time, it allows Miami to keep him on the roster without taking up one of the 53 slots on the team.
You can check out the rest of that story here, and the rest of the day’s round-up below.
Dolphins rookie standout to miss time injured; QB Quinn Ewers may return this week - David Furones, South Florida Sun Sentinel
It was clearly concerning the moment Miami Dolphins standout rookie linebacker Trey Moore went down injured in Saturday’s preseason loss to the New York Giants. And follow-up testing on Sunday morning confirmed the Dolphins will be without him for a while.
Dolphins-Giants review
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Dolphins Snap Count Observations for Giants Game: Rookies Get a Taste - Alain Poupart, Miami Dolphins on SI
The full rundown of who didn’t play and who played more than expected during the 26-3 loss against the New York Giants
Deep Kevin Coleman catch among few Dolphins highlights in rough preseason loss to Giants - David Furones, South Florida Sun Sentinel
As the Miami Dolphins rested several starters and veterans, Saturday afternoon’s preseason game against the New York Giants at Hard Rock Stadium gave the youngsters and fringe roster players an opportunity to shine.
Four Winners And Four Losers in the Miami Dolphins Preseason Loss Against the New York Giants - Jake Gibson, Miami Dolphins on SI
There wasn’t much winning on offense for the Dolphins this time around, but there were some bright spots on defense.
Miami Dolphins Preseason Game 2: Quick Recap - Chris Early, Aqua and Orange Report
Welcome back to Aqua And Orange Review. The Miami Dolphins just finished their second preseason game of the 2026 season, losing 26-3 to the New York Giants. The game was uglier than the score suggests as the Dolphins struggled in all three phases of the game. Let’s get to some of the highlights. Or lowlights.
Dolphins injury updates
What to Know About Miami Dolphins LB Trey Moore’s Status and Other Injury Updates - Alain Poupart, Miami Dolphins on SI
The rookie fourth-round pick sustained an ankle injury in the preseason loss against the New York Giants
Dolphins’ Trey Moore won’t be back soon. Hafley offers more news, updates - Barry Jackson, Miami Herald
Trey Moore, who had emerged as a front-runner to start at linebacker for the Dolphins, will be out awhile after sustaining an ankle injury during Saturday’s 26-3 preseason loss to the Giants.
Dolphins training camp
What we’ve learned through four weeks of Dolphins training camp - Chris Perkins, South Florida Sun Sentinel
Physicality remains a positive for the rebuilding Miami Dolphins through preseason and training camp. That’s got to please coach Jeff Hafley.
Dolphins roster cuts and projections
Dolphins 2026 53-Man Roster Projection 4.0: How Things Stand One Week Before Cuts - Alain Poupart, Miami Dolphins on SI
Here’s Publisher Alain Poupart’s fourth 2026 roster prediction
ICYMI - The Phinsider News and Updates
Dolphins rookie defender to miss time after injury during game against Giants - Marek Brave, The Phinsider
Miami’s Trey Moore suffers ankle injury in loss to New York.
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A Review of Injury Data as it Relates to Winning a Division and Playoff Success.
For those of you who may remember me from last year sharing my injury data and found it interesting, I had some time this preseason to go back and look at how staying healthy affects a teams ability to make it to the playoffs. Thought I'd again share here with my fellow AFCE fans.
It's not secret to MIA fans that you guys have had to deal with more than your fair share of injuries the last two seasons. By my injury harm metric the Fins were the 29th most injured team in 2024 and the 30th in 2025. I also know this season is a major reset for you guys and I'm actually looking forward to seeing how the new regime rebuilds the team and hoping they will have you competitive again in 2027 as it's a more fun division when our two teams are both competitive.
That said, I still think it's worth watching how injuries impact this year for you as going forward once the coaches bring in the talent they want/need it's still going to play a role in the teams overall success. So this gives you guys something of a baseline to keep in the back of your heads going forward.
I started tracking the data and developed my harm metric in 2024. It weighs starters (as listed by the teams depth charts as they are posted at the start of each season) more heavily than backups and starting QBs the heaviest. All three lists, IR/PUP, weekly injury report, and game day inactive lists get scored and tallied up to create a weekly score which is averaged out over the games played for every team.
While it's only been two years, it gives a starting point and I'm looking forward to seeing how this season's data will compare and if it will add to the proof of a trend. I went back and looked at the division winners from 2024 and 2025 to see how injuries may have played a part in getting to the postseason.
My five healthiest teams at the end of the 2025 season were:
SEA - 14-3 (SB win)
LV - 3-14 (the lone exception and certainly an indictment on their roster building)
LAR - 12-5 (Lost to SEA in NFCCG)
NE - 14-3 (won AFCCG)
JAX - 13-4 (Playoff loss to BUF)
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Three of the top five played in their respective conference championships.
I decided to look at my metrics in a different way and came up with this for last year's division winners.
Division winners’ health (rank in division / rank in league):
AFCE: NE (1st in div / 4th in league)
AFCN: PIT (2nd in div / 9th in league)
AFCS: JAX (1st in div / 5th in league)
AFCW: DEN (3rd in div / 11th in league)
NFCE: PHI (1st in div / 7th in league)
NFCN: CHI (1st in div / 17th in league) - a very injury plagued division
NFCS: CAR (1st in div / 14th in league) - another injury plagued division
NFCW: SEA (1st in div / 1st in league) - interesting division containing the two of the three healthiest (SEA/LAR) and two of the three most injured (SF/ARI) teams in the league by my metrics.
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Even I am shocked how consistent that is for division winners. Six of the eight winners were the healthiest team. Just PIT and DEN as outliers. PIT only behind CIN who lost Burrow for like three months. DEN behind both LV which we know just sucked and KC's struggles were just weird (though satisfying).
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Five healthiest teams at the end of 2024:
BAL - 12-5 (lost to BUF in DIV Rd)
DEN - 10-7 (lost to BUF in WC Rd)
GB - 11-6 (lost to PHI in WC Rd)
WAS - 12-5 (lost to PHI in NFCCG)
ATL - 8-9 (the exception in 2024 for the indictment on roster talent)
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Interesting that four of the healthiest teams and the four to make the playoffs all met their ends at the hands of the same team in their respective divisions. BUF and PHI both getting to their conference championships and PHI ultimately winning the SB but both teams still being in the top 10 healthiest during the season.
Division winners health (rank in division / rank in league):
AFCE: BUF (1st in div / 8th in league)
AFCN: BAL (1nd in div / 1st in league)
AFCS: HOU (3rd in div / 22nd in league) - IND/JAX/TEN just sucked lol
AFCW: KC (2nd in div / 9th in league) - DEN was 2nd in league
NFCE: PHI (2nd in div / 6th in league) - WAS was 4th in league
NFCN: DET (4th in div / 27th in league) - See below
NFCS: TB (2nd in div / 19th in league) - ATL was 5th in league
NFCW: LAR (2nd in div / 16th in league) - SEA was right ahead at 15th in league
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The DET outlier can sort of be made sense of by looking at the week-by-week score. For the first 12 weeks of the season thier weekly injury score was on par with their divisional opponents. The last six weeks though they got hit so hard thier score was at least double (and sometimes triple) their opponents weekly score. Those last six weeks they still won playing CHI twice, MIN, GB, SF, and BUF once each and only losing to BUF in that span. SF was an even worse injured team at that time.
Not nearly as impressive in consistency as 2025's data but I can definitely start to make a case that one the least injured team in a division is likely to be going to the playoff. The exceptions all seem to be located in divisions that were somewhat weak AFCS and NFCN for 2024.
So with two years of data giving 16 points of data for division winners we can show that teams who win their divisions are:
50% of the time the healthiest team.
31.25% of the time the 2nd most healthy team.
12.5% of the time the 3rd most healthy team.
6.25% of the time the most injured team.
81.25% of the time one of the two healthiest teams is a division winner. Plus given my data above, those teams that do win as one of the two most injured teams seem to come primarily from very weak divisions.
The data is pretty clear on the fact that you want to be one of the healthier teams to have the best shot at making it to the playoffs. So once we get to the halfway point, seeing who are the healthiest teams will become something to watch for as the second half of the season starts to unfold and the playoff chase really begins.
I didn't track injuries through the playoffs in 2024 cause I hadn't formatted a new spreadsheet to track just a few teams but just taking the regular season health shows that out of the 13 playoff games, the healthier team going into the playoffs won six times. The Bills helped to keep that down by beating the two healthiest teams that season BAL and DEN. If we look at the 2025 playoffs we see that the healthiest team going into them won 10 times out of the 13 games. Combined that's 16 out of the 26 games possible or 61.5% of the time.
A final thought and pretty big data point is looking at the teams that have played in the conference championship games. In 2024 that was BUF (ranked 8th healthiest in the regular season) and KC (9th) in the AFC; WAS (4th) and PHI (6th) for the NFC. In 2025 you have NE (4th) and DEN (11) for the AFC; LAR (3rd) and SEA (1st) for the NFC. Seven of the eight teams were in the top 10 for health during the regular season (and even that eighth, DEN, just outside at 11th).
Hope you found the data to this point interesting and worth watching for going forward. It's been an experience the last couple of years diving so deep into the topic for me. Here's to a healthy and productive season for both our teams!
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