Dolphins with fewer roster openings than usual. Here’s why and answers. And McDaniel news
On a team with several raging roster battles, Mike McDaniel’s and Chris Grier’s Dolphins face a numbers-crunching conundrum that never seriously impacted Brian Flores and Grier last August.
That’s because two positions are likely to fill spots on this 53-man Dolphins roster that weren’t necessary on last year’s opening-day roster.
Impressive seventh-round rookie quarterback Skylar Thompson has displayed enough skill that placing him on waivers with the intent of moving him to the practice squad would be too risky; he likely would be claimed by another team. It would be very surprising if he’s not on the opening-day 53. Meanwhile, McDaniel’s offense features a fullback at times while Flores’ didn’t.
But the flip side of retaining a third quarterback (Thompson) and fullback (Alec Ingold) on the 53-man roster means keeping two fewer players at other positions.
Considering the team’s strong front seven depth (where decisions would be difficult enough anyway), and the need for a high volume of defensive backs in a pass-heavy league - combined with Byron Jones’ iffy status for the season opener - at least one if not both of those No. 3 QB/fullback openings must be created by job slashing elsewhere on offense.
A look at the options:
▪ Running back: Excluding Ingold, the thinking had been that four backs would be kept – Chase Edmonds and Raheem Mostert and two among Sony Michel, Myles Gaskin and Salvon Ahmed. The fact Mostert is coming off a serious injury for the 49ers - and hasn’t played in preseason - would make the case to keep four backs beyond Ingold.
Curiously, both Michel and Ahmed played before Gaskin (a 2021 starter) in both preseason games, though Gaskin (17 snaps) played more than Ahmed (12) and Michel (8) on Saturday.
In two preseason games, Michel has four carries for minus two yards and failed twice on short yardage runs on Saturday; Ahmed has 7 attempts for 20 yards in preseason; and Gaskin 8 for 39. Michel has been limited at times in practice, so Gaskin and Ahmed have a somewhat larger, better body of practice work, for whatever that’s worth.
If you choose only one among Gaskin, Ahmed and Michel, it would be simple to find another running back during the season if there are injuries.
▪ Tight end: Considering this new offense doesn’t feature nearly as many two tight end sets as the previous one, it would be easy to get away with keeping three: Mike Gesicki (barring a trade), Durham Smythe and Hunter Long. Last year, Miami kept five.
The question is whether to keep a fourth, Cethan Carter, who can also play H-back and fullback. Carter didn’t pick up a blitz that led to a sack on Saturday and was beaten on a block that led to a three-yard loss on a running play.
▪ Offensive line: While teams typically keep nine or 10, Miami could keep eight to save a roster spot – the starters, guard Robert Jones, center Michael Deiter and either a backup tackle or guard Solomon Kindley. Left guard Liam Eichenberg could be the backup tackle if the Dolphins cut all their backup tackles (Larnel Coleman, injured Greg Little, Kion Smith, Kellen Diesch).
▪ Wide receiver: There’s no question Miami will keep at least five (with Erik Ezukanma and Trent Sherfield the fourth and fifth), and a strong case could be made to keep a sixth among impressive rookie Braylon Sanders, River Cracraft, Lynn Bowden, Mohamed Sanu and Preston Williams.
Because of injury issues in the defensive backfield, and greater quality of backup edge players, Miami might need to eliminate/consolidate even three or four backup jobs on offense, not merely the two needed to make room on the 53 for Thompson and Ingold.
Asked Sunday after his comfort level with keeping a No. 3 quarterback, McDaniel said his teams have done so at times in the past and he likes to keep the best 53.
Teams must cut from 85 to 80 players by 4 p.m. Tuesday and to 53 by 4 p.m. Aug. 30.
McDANIEL PRESSER
McDaniel, in his Dolphins’ news conference on Sunday, was asked if there’s anyone who is at risk of missing the regular season opener beyond cornerback Byron Jones, who hopes to return by then. McDaniel said there are no surprises, suggesting there are no serious injuries.
Cornerbacks Nik Needham, Keion Crossen and Mackensie Alexander left with various injuries during Saturday’s game. Crossen and Alexander returned to the game; Needham did not.
McDaniel said he has no concerns about Terron Armstead’s availability for Week 1: “We’re trying not to overload him. You will see him this week for sure” in practice.
McDaniel said the team is showing “restraint” with Jaylen Waddle’s unspecified injury, which isn’t serious. “We noticed something that’s a little tight and wanted to be preventative. We’ve been extra cautious with him. He’s starting to get pretty annoyed with how cautious we’re being. This week, we plan to get him involved a little bit.”
▪ McDaniel said it was “awesome” to spend time with Heat coach Erik Spoelstra at Dolphins practice last week. He said they discussed commonalities, including their value of spacing on offense.
“His experience is so unique in that he came in as a rookie head coach and had pretty high expectations off the jump,” McDaniel said. “To carry on the success of having three superstars, and had success in different ways of maintaining one type of culture [is impressive]. He was pretty interested in YAC [yards after catch], which was a cool conversation.”
They worked toward determining “can we get things from each other. Very different sports but similar in that we’re all dealing with a time that athletes are as finely tuned as they’ve ever been.”
McDaniel cracked that Tyreek Hill- who approached Spoelstra - “jumped on the opportunity to get courtside seats.”
This story was originally published August 21, 2022 at 4:54 PM.
