McDaniel addresses Jackson injury, Noah, Tua, Ezukanma, more in Dolphins news conference
The Dolphins are getting further evaluation of Austin Jackson’s right ankle injury, sustained in the opener.
Asked if it’s a sprain or something potentially more serious, coach Mike McDaniel said Monday that the injury “is serious enough where we’re giving some more eyes on it.”
McDaniel said Jackson felt well enough to go back in the game if he had been needed. But the team was being cautious and is now further evaluating the injury.
Greg Little played right tackle after Jackson left. Little left the game briefly before returning, with right guard Robert Hunt moving to right tackle briefly.
Asked about the performance of the offensive line, McDaniel said: “I was pleased with it operating under the assumption we’ll continue to get better. I saw some really good stuff. You can’t take advantage of some really good things unless everyone is in concert. When players were making plays in the run game, there were a couple of players that were a hair off.”
In other injury news, McDaniel said fullback/tight end Cethan Carter is now in concussion protocol.
McDaniel addressed other issues during his Monday news conference, following a 20-7 win against New England in McDaniel’s first regular season game as an NFL coach:
▪ On Tua Tagovailoa’s performance: “I was happy with Tua because he did a lot of things well and he got the taste of some things he wasn’t that fired up about. To do your position right in the National Football League, you can’t be afraid to find things you can do better at. There were a couple times Tua was covering for me because I got in the play later than I would like. That’s something I have no patience for, of myself. There are some things he’s done in practice that he didn’t do exactly the same in the game.
“What I really like is he made plays in each quarter. To me, that’s good quarterback play. He found ways to make plays even after plays he was frustrated at, which a lot had to do with me.”
▪ He said “there were some” opportunities for bigger plays in the running game. “New England does a good job of creating different looks. That kept us off balance to a degree.”
▪ Overall, McDaniel said “there were no celebrations or parties today. I could tell the team knew there were some plays to be made on the field that we didn’t make. Throughout the whole building, guys were focused on getting better and improving before this Baltimore game. I promise you, Baltimore couldn’t care less about our happy feelings on Sunday.”
▪ On Mike Gesicki, who had only one catch for 1 yard: ‘I would have expected at the end of the game by our game plan for him to have more pass game production.” He said that wasn’t a reflection of the game plan.”
McDaniel then said he would have expected more opportunities for Jaylen Waddle and Raheem Mosert.
▪ On the decision to have Noah Igbinoghene be inactive and the secondary’s performance overall: “I was pretty happy with the secondary. That’s kind of what I expected. Noah knows I wasn’t punishing him. It had to do with our specific game plan and these specific matchups.”
▪ McDaniel said linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel — who logged seven snaps on defense — would have played more if he hadn’t had his appendix removed three weeks ago.
“He was working his way back,” McDaniel said. “He’s had a tremendous offseason. That’s a guy whose teammates root for him. I would expect him to get more stuff moving forward.”
▪ On Baltimore, which hosts the Dolphins at 1 p.m. Sunday on CBS: “It’s as good of a challenge as you get in the National Football League. It’s going to be a fun game, a challenging game.”
▪ On the decision to keep receiver Trent Sherfield active (and elevate River Cracraft) and make rookie Erik Ezukanma a healthy scratch against New England:
“It was tough because you know Erik can make plays but we were anticipating some position versatility we needed,” McDaniel said. “Having River come up, he can make a ton of plays too. It is tough when you have multiple players you’re confident in, but you embrace those decisions on a weekly basis.
“It’s who gives you the best opportunity in a given game plan. I told Erik it’s also an opportunity for him any time you’re not active, the tendency for players is it sucks for them. I told him, this is something you use to your advantage moving forward.... You take in the environment.. and be extra detailed on your game plan. He gives the rest of his team confidence he can own game plans week in and week out, from multiple positions, he won’t have that problem anymore, which he understood.”
PLAYERS WEIGH IN
▪ In the Dolphins’ 22-10 win against Baltimore last November, Dolphins safeties Jevon Holland and Brandon Jones blitzed a combined 38 times. That’s the most defensive back blitzes by a team since at least 2016, per Next Gen Stats.
Is Holland curious if defensive coordinator Josh Boyer will use the same strategy? Not particularly, he said. “I’ll do what coaches tell me, because that’s my job,” he said.
▪ Holland said rookie cornerback Kader Kohou is “a hell of a player. Even though he’s young, he’s a dynamic playmaker. He’s extremely fast.”
▪ Special teams ace Justin Bethel, who was cut by New England and signed by Miami in the past two weeks, said the Dolphins did not ask him any questions about the Patriots in the days leading up to the game.
He joked about, and downplayed, the notion that the Patriots sign former Dolphins “so they can tell them all the secrets.”
This story was originally published September 12, 2022 at 4:57 PM.
