Dolphins big-ticket additions must step up against Jaguars
■ ‘Thursday Night Football’ preview: The Miami Dolphins face Gardner Minshew and the Jacksonville Jaguars, who have fast-forwarded their rebuild with good drafting.
DOLPHINS AT JAGUARS; 8:30 P.M., ABC, NFLN
Are the tanking Jaguars better than the trying Dolphins?
We will find out Thursday, but given the point spread for Miami’s lone prime-time game (Jags favored by three at home), the betting public believes it’s a close call.
Which is remarkable, considering how much talent the Dolphins added this offseason and how much talent the Jaguars purged.
Basically, Jacksonville — with $42 million in dead money and a treasure trove of picks and cap space awaiting in 2021 — is where Miami was this time last year.
Except, of course, with a few major differences.
Most notably:
The Jaguars have been competitive early on, even after detonating their roster.
And they might already have lucked into their quarterback of the future in Gardner Minshew.
If so — and that’s still a big if, considering he’s still just 14 starts into his NFL career — that would allow Jaguars general manager David Caldwell to send the rebuild into hyperdrive next offseason.
Instead of being locked into taking a quarterback early in the draft, they can use their picks and cap space on building a team around Minshew, who has been a revelation after falling to the 178th pick of the 2019 draft.
(As a reminder, instead of drafting Minshew at any point in Rounds 1-5, the Dolphins — who needed a young quarterback in early 2019 — gave up a secondand fifth-round pick for Josh Rosen, who is no longer on the team.)
“Coming out, he was smart, tough, competitive, good accuracy,” Dolphins coach Brian Flores said. “A guy we liked. I’m not surprised. He’s got all of the char
acteristics you’re looking for in that position. He’s a smart player, and obviously that’s coming to fruition up there in Jacksonville.”
But the Jaguars, the youngest team in the NFL with just two players on their roster with a cap figure of more than $10 million, are competitive this year because they have hit on a number of value players beyond just Minshew.
Their featured running back — James Robinson, who’s averaging 5.1 yards per carry — is not only an undrafted rookie, he has had perhaps the best start to a career of any undrafted rookie ever. Robinson showed enough, even without a true offseason, to convince the Jaguars to dump Leonard Fournette late in training camp.
Their top two receivers are D.J. Chark (the 61st pick in the 2018 draft) and Keelan Cole (who went undrafted in 2017).
And in April they seem to have drafted a number of building blocks in cornerback C.J. Henderson, defensive end K’Lavon Chaisson and wide receiver Laviska Shenault Jr.
“Young, talented, physical, developing, fast,” Flores said of Chaisson and second-year pass rusher Josh Allen. “Great effort. They play hard. They’ll be good players in this league if they just continue on their trajectory that they’re on. I know [Jaguars coach] Doug [Marrone] is on them.
He’s on them about being professionals and doing it the right way, and if they listen up, they’ll be just fine.”
Flores surely has been on his young team just as hard, if not harder, the past few days.
While the Jaguars (1-1) could position themselves for a meaningful 2020 with a win Thursday, the Dolphins are trying to save their season after an 0-2 start.
While the Jags have gotten value from low-cost players, the Dolphins have gotten little production from their big-ticket additions.
Miami’s nine-figure defense is among the league’s worst. Minshew, who’s earning $850,000 this year, is the the league’s seventh-highest rated passer (115.7).
“I think it’s just how can we get better, what’s the next phase, how can we eliminate the mental errors, how can we move the ball better and just play complementary football across the board?” said offensive lineman Jesse Davis, a Dolphins team captain. “I think we’re on the right path. It’s encouraging to see us out here competing instead of from last year — it’s a night and day difference. With that said, we’ve got to get a win and we’ve got to put up a bunch of wins here.”
And given their issues on defense, Miami’s best hope to get a bunch of wins is to score a bunch of points.
They put on 28 against the Bills in Week 2, and it still wasn’t enough.
But Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick insists he won’t press, no matter what the defense does.
“For us, there’s so much that we’re just missing on or there are some mistakes that I’m making that are just going to make us that much better on offense [if I don’t make them],” he said. “There are a million things we’re focused on trying to get better and fixed right now as an offense. I know the defense is doing that as well. For me, our goal is to go out and score on every drive and if we don’t do that, we’ve got to figure out why we’re not doing that and try to correct it.”
INJURY REPORT
Defensive back Byron Jones (groin) has been ruled out of Thursday night’s Dolphins-Jaguars game, news that while not surprising, is certainly damaging to Miami’s hopes.
Jones lasted just four snaps before leaving Sunday’s Bills loss with the injury. And in his absence, the Dolphins’ pass defense was quite bad.
Noah Igbinoghene, Nik Needham and Xavien Howard all struggled, leading to a career day by Josh Allen, who had three completions of over 40 yards.
So what will the Dolphins do differently against Minshew and the Jaguars?
TBD, but one option is to move Bobby McCain from free safety back to his natural position at nickel corner, and play Brandon Jones more.
Meanwhile, special teams ace Clayton Fejedelem (pectoral muscle) is doubtful for Thursday while Elandon Roberts is out of the concussion protocol and available to play.