Kelly: Dolphins starting right tackle inching close to returning | Opinion
This is typically the time of season when the Miami Dolphins offensive line starts falling apart.
It’s happened season after season for more than a decade.
Whether it’s Mike Pouncey, Branden Albert, Isaiah Wynn, Connor Williams, or Robert Hunt, this final stretch of the regular season is when Miami’s offensive line typically gets decimated by injuries to starters.
While the Dolphins’ offensive line had been dealt a bad hand from an injury standpoint this season — losing four lineman who were expected to make the 53-man roster, and be contributors — it appears reinforcements are on the way.
Austin Jackson began practicing with the team during the Madrid trip, and it appears he’ll regain his starting spot on Sunday against the New Orleans Saints.
“I’m very excited for the uptick [of work] and feel very confident about where he’ll be at through the week as long as there are setbacks, so we’ll progress with aggressive temperance,” coach Mike McDaniel said.
The problem with Jackson, a 2020 first-round pick, is he had had setbacks all but one season of his six-year career.
In 2020 he sustained a knee injury a month into the season, missed a month of starters, and when he returned he wasn’t the same player.
In 2022 he suffered an ankle injury in the season opener. Rehabbed it for nine weeks before returning to the starting lineup for one game in November. Wouldn’t you know he re-aggravated the same ankle injury in that game and returned to injured reserve.
In 2023, which was arguably Jackson’s best year, he played the final two months with an oblique injury, but pushed through, and that season landed him a three-year contract extension that’s potentially worth $36 million.
In 2024 the former USC standout injured his right knee in an early November loss to Buffalo and missed the final nine games.
Clearly staying healthy has been a challenge for this 55-game starter, and this season has been no exception.
Jackson initially sustained a right toe injury the second week of training camp. He sat out of practices the five weeks that followed and returned to the starting lineup for the season-opening loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
He played that entire game, but doing so he re-aggravated the injury, and it led him back to injured reserve.
If Jackson returns to the starting lineup for this Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints his presence will strengthen a unit that has paved the way for De’Von Achane being 100 yards from becoming a 1,000-yard rusher for the first time in his NFL career.
The Dolphins are averaging 4.7 yards per rush. The NFL average is 4.3 yards per attempt. Miami’s yards-per-carry average ranks eighth in the NFL.
Miami’s rushing yards per game falls below the league average (115 per game). But the Dolphins offense has had limited opportunities to run the ball this season because they were playing from behind early, or faced big deficits.
Only four teams have a lower time of possession per game average than the Dolphins, which ranked 16th in sacks per passing attempt allowed (6.97).
And Miami has the NFL’s eighth best goal-to-go offense in the NFL, and that was after two drives were stopped at the 1-yard line in the Commanders game.
The Dolphins are hoping Jackson’s leadership and run blocking presence will help the offensive line turn up the volume on what Miami’s been doing this past month.
“Having A.J. back in the fold gives us a spark,” said left tackle Patrick Paul. “He’s definitely a loud and vocal leader for us.”
And that’s exactly what this unit, which lost Liam Eichenberg to a season-ending knee injury, Andrew Meyer, a second-year player who was showing promise in training camp, to an elbow injury that got him shelved before the preseason starter, and James Daniel to a pectoral injury that has been slow to heal, needs to help the Dolphins offense finish out the final six games strong.
Larry Borom has been filling in for Jackson as Miami’s starting right tackle all but one game this season, and he has made steady improvements. So much so he’s no longer viewed as a weak link on the Dolphins offense line.
When asked if Borom, who has started games at guard, would get into the mix to start at offensive guard, potentially replacing Jonah Savaiinaea and Strange, the Dolphins downplayed the idea for now because they realize Jackson’s injury history might force the issue.
“I don’t think it’s as simple as coming back in Week 13 for Austin and him playing the entire game. I would forecast that Larry [Borom] would still play at that position regardless,” McDaniel said. “There’s only one way to get into football shape and that’s playing football, so I want to be cognizant of that.”
This story was originally published November 25, 2025 at 11:06 AM.
