Marcel Louis-JacquesMar 8, 2025, 11:00 AM
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MIAMI GARDENS -- This offseason, the Miami Dolphins may need to replace more than half of their defensive starters from a season ago, depending on how free agency plays out.
If their pass rushers can return to full health, however, that instability will be mitigated.
Jaelan Phillips, Bradley Chubb and Chop Robinson form a promising pass-rush trio, but one that has yet to take a single practice or game snap together. Phillips suffered a season-ending torn ACL in Week 4 of the 2024 season, while Chubb missed the entire season after tearing the ACL, meniscus and patellar tendon in his right knee at the end of the 2023 season.
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The Dolphins' first-round pick in 2024, Robinson flourished when thrust into a starting role and finished with 6 sacks and 38 pressures.
"You don't know what the first year is going to look like. We just felt very confident that he was going to be the type of player that could be an impact player," Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said of Robinson in December. "So what's been memorable about his year is that you talk about the 'anti-rookie wall,' he really started impacting the game the more and more he learned."
Despite the group's injury concerns, the trio does inspire some optimism. Since 2022, Chubb, Phillips and Robinson all rank among the 25 best pass rushers in the league in pressure rate. No other team features three players in the top 25 of that category.
At the time of his injury in Week 17 of the 2023 season, Chubb ranked ninth in pass rush win rate and fifth in pressure rate among qualified defenders.
But he's now torn his ACL twice since 2019 and is playing on a five-year, $110 million extension he signed when the Dolphins traded for him in 2022. He agreed to a restructured contract this offseason to help lower his $28.6 million cap hit in 2025 and while he missed the entire 2024 season, Chubb is expected to be ready for the team's offseason program.
"It was a big-time injury that took an absolute calendar year of strain and work to just get into that position," McDaniel said. "And I don't think the process -- although we're not seeing him this year, it was very beneficial to be able to work through that. Now you're not waiting an offseason with like, 'what's it going to be like?' or 'do I still?' -- he knows where he's at right now and knows that he just has a little longer to build to get to his standard of play and standard of execution."
Chop Robinson had a promising rookie season in 2024. Photo by Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire
Phillips worked his way back from a torn Achilles tendon he suffered in 2023, and was ready for the team's season opener in 2024. He created pressures on 15.7% of his pass rushes in the first three weeks of the season, seventh-best among NFL linebackers.
But he tore his ACL in a disastrous blowout loss to the Tennessee Titans in Week 4, ending his season prematurely for the second year in a row.
Miami showed its faith in Phillips last offseason, when it picked up his fifth-year option for the 2025 season, but an extension is unlikely to come until after this season -- assuming he is able to return to form and remain healthy.
While the Dolphins will employ the same defensive coordinator for consecutive seasons for the first time since 2022, their defensive continuity will depend heavily on the results of this free agency period.
Safeties Jordan Poyer and Jevon Holland are free agents, as is linebacker Anthony Walker and defensive linemen Calais Campbell and Benito Jones -- all of whom started for the Dolphins last season.
As the team potentially looks to build chemistry from a unit that allowed the fourth-fewest yards per game last season, it would benefit from being able to deploy Robinson, Phillips and Chubb at the same time.
"I think we all have seen, from all three players, what they're capable of," defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver said. "So the idea of having all three of them available and on the field at the same time ... you completely opened up Pandora's box for me and you just start thinking of ways you can use them in multiple positions and really scare and intimidate offenses. So it would certainly be awesome ... it'd just be a lot of fun to see what we can do with all those three guys."