2 steady veterans looking for role on Miami Dolphins’ offensive line. How they compare
A six-pack of Miami Dolphins notes on a Thursday:
▪ As we’ve reported, our understanding is that rookie Liam Eichenberg will be given an opportunity to win the right tackle job. Some Dolphins people believe he’s more than capable of being a first-year starter.
Left tackle Austin Jackson, center Matt Skura and right guard Rob Hunt are heavy favorites to start.
And that leaves two savvy, versatile veterans — D.J. Fluker and Jesse Davis — with undefined roles.
Both could challenge Solomon Kindley at left guard and Eichenberg at right tackle. One of the two will end up as the swing No. 3 tackle. My sense is that Davis will end up competing with Kindley at left guard.
Both Fluker and Davis played primarily right tackle last season.
So how did they compare?
Pro Football Focus rated Fluker 55th and Davis 57th among 79 qualifying offensive tackles last season.
In 16 games, including eight starts, for Baltimore, Fluker allowed two sacks, three hits and 26 quarterback pressures in 254 pass-blocking opportunities.
Davis, in 16 games and 15 starts, permitted only one sack, plus 10 hits and 34 pressures in 657 pass-blocking snaps.
PFF rated Davis fourth best among all tackles in pass blocking efficiency. So Davis gets the edge as a pass-protector, at least in 2020.
But Fluker graded out better as a run blocker; PFF ranked him 49th among 135 tackles in that category. Davis was rated 97th.
Fluker committed four penalties in 593 total offensive snaps last season, while Davis committed one in 1055 total snaps.
At this stage, they’re probably comparable players. One of them could emerge as a starter, with left guard a possibility and right tackle coming into play if Eichenberg isn’t effective in August.
Both would be competent starters. But if these players are your sixth and seventh offensive linemen, that’s a good position to be in.
▪ One positive of the shuffling is Kindley can return to left guard — his position in Georgia — after playing mostly at right guard last season.
Kindley played all 1,489 of his college snaps in 2018 and 2019 at left guard, allowing no sacks in 2018.
▪ NFL Network analyst Michael Robinson — the former Pro Bowl fullback — explained the other day how Will Fuller and Jaylen Waddle will help the Dolphins in more ways than the obvious ones.
“That speed backs a defense up,” he said. “It makes the safeties not sit at seven and eight yards [from the line of scrimmage]. Now they’re sitting at 12 to 15 yards. That spaces opens up things underneath. It opens up the run game. It opens up your possession receivers, DeVante Parker. The speed on the outside for Tua Tagovailoa is going to give him two extra wins.”
▪ It’s ridiculous that the Dolphins got only two prime-time games, coming off a 10-6 season, when you consider that the 49ers and Rams got five; the Bears, Vikings, and Raiders got four; and the Giants, Patriots, Cardinals, Washington and the Chargers got three each. Every one of those teams had a worse record than the Dolphins last season.
Here’s the prime-time run down:
Five prime time games: New Orleans, Dallas, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Kansas City, 49ers, Rams.
Four prime time games: Minnesota, Las Vegas, Chicago, Buffalo, Indianapolis.
Three: New England, Chargers, Giants, Cleveland, Arizona, Washington and Tennessee.
Two: Dolphins and Philadelphia.
One: Detroit, Jets, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Houston, Carolina, Atlanta, Denver.
▪ Nick Saban’s admiration for Waddle resonates in so many ways. When Waddle sustained his ankle injury in October, he said:
“This is two years in a row we lost a player who was probably the most popular player on the team in terms of being a good teammate and being liked by his teammates,” Saban said of Waddle’s ankle injury in October. “Tua was that way last year, and Jaylen’s that way” in 2020.
On the fact Waddle could come back from a major ankle injury to play in the national championship (and catch three passes), Saban said: “I have a lot of respect for Jaylen Waddle, his mental toughness and his ability to be able to come back. My hat’s off to him. I had the same injury, so I know the difficulties coming back from that.
“You’re healed but your ankle is so stiff, it’s difficult to sort of get the flexibility and the flexion back so you can explode like you want to, especially when you drop your weight on that foot, which comes when you’re slowing down, trying to make a cut.”
He also said Waddle can accelerate out of a break “faster than anyone I’ve seen.”
▪ Not only were the Dolphins 30th in the league in average yards after catch on offense, they also allowed 6.2 yards after catch per reception last season, worst in the league. There could be several things at play here: the defensive players needing to take better angles; lack of speed in some cases; and poor tackling.
Here’s my first of two Thursday Miami Heat pieces, with a look at how each Heat defender has done when guarding Giannis Antetokounmpo, and other nuggets.
Please follow me on Twitter (@flasportsbuzz) and bookmark this page for my archives.
This story was originally published May 20, 2021 at 4:31 PM.
