Wednesday Miami Dolphins Notebook: Chase Goodbye, Baker’s New Deal, Practice Squad Move, and More
While Miami Dolphins players were excited to welcome new teammates Bradley Chubb and Jeff Wilson Jr. on Wednesday, there also was some sadness at moving forward without running back Chase Edmonds.
Edmonds was part of the deal that landed Chubb and, although, he only was a member of the team for seven-plus months, he clearly formed a bond with several offensive teammates in Miami.
“First and foremost, I have to give a shoutout to Chase,” Raheem Mostert said Wednesday. “I built a strong bond with him, and it’s always difficult when you see a teammate, a brother of yours be traded to a different team. I hope the best for him. I actually called him when I found out and we talked for a little bit. He was like, ‘Man, you’ve got to do your thing out there,’ and I said the same thing. It’s always good to know that somebody wanted him, too. So there’s a lot of positives.”
Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa also made it a point to talk about the bond he built with Edmonds.
“I mean, that’s my guy,” Tua said. “I got to spend a lot of time with him throughout the offseason and obviously through the season. It’s sad. It’s tough. But, like I said, it’s part of the business. He knows that and we all understand and we all know that.”
NEW NUMBERS FOR THE NEW GUYS
One of the first orders of business for Chubb and Wilson, before their first practice with the Dolphins, was assigned them jersey numbers: It was 2 for Chubb, 23 for Wilson.
For those not familiar, Chubb wore 55 during his entire time with the Broncos and Wilson had 22 with the 49ers after starting off with 41 and then 30.
Going back to college, Chubb wore 49 and 9 at North Carolina State, while Wilson jumped from 26 to 3 at North Texas.
Chubb, not surprisingly becomes the first linebacker to wear 2 for the Dolphins, who also have at that position number 6 (Melvin Ingram) and 15 (Jaelan Phillips).
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ALREADY CHUMMY WITH CHUBB?
Quarterback Teddy Bridgewater is the one Dolphins player really familiar, having played with Chubb in Denver last season.
Tua, meanwhile, got a little close to Chubb to his liking in 2020 when the Dolphins played at Denver. This was a game where Tua was replaced by veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick in the fourth quarter, and his last snap that day ended when Chubb sacked him for a 9-yard loss.
Safety Brandon Jones, who’s on IR, is friends with Chubb, who attended his wedding to Brianna in the offseason. That’s where Chubb met some Dolphins players, including Jaelan Phillips.
RESTRUCTURED DEAL FOR BAKER
To give themselves some room under the salary cap in the aftermath of the Chubb trade, the Dolphins restructured the contract of linebacker Jerome Baker, as confirmed by a league source.
The move will save the Dolphins about $2.5 million of cap space, according to ESPN reporter Field Yates.
Baker signed a three-year, $37.5 million extension in June 2021. His cap number for 2022 previously was $7.5 million, per overthecap.com.
PRACTICE SQUAD MOVE
The Dolphins signed three-year veteran offensive lineman Lamont Gaillard to their practice squad Wednesday, filling the opening created when they released QB Reid Sinnett.
Gaillard has 13 games of NFL experience, all coming with the Arizona Cardinals in 2020 when he started twice. He was a sixth-round pick of Arizona in 2019 out of the University of Georgia and spent that season on the team’s active roster but did not appear in a game. Gaillard spent most of the 2021 season on Cincinnati’s practice squad and was with the Bengals during the 2022 training camp.
As a refresher, the Dolphins practice squad now looks like this:
CB Kalon Barnes
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DT Josiah Bronson
DE Big Kat Bryant
CB Tino Ellis
OL James Empey
OL Lamont Gaillard
LB Cameron Goode
OL Grant Hermanns
WR Calvin Jackson
S Verone McKinley III
RB La’Mical Perine
DB Jamal Perry
WR Braylon Sanders
T Kion Smith
DL Ben Stille
DT Jaylen Twyman
As a reminder, McKinley no longer can just be elevated from the practice squad for a game because he’s already moved up three times; Sanders and Stille each has been elevated once.
TUA SOUR ON SOLDIER FIELD
The game at Soldier Field will be the second for Tua, though the first one came in the preseason last summer.
One thing for sure, Soldier Field didn’t leave much of an impression on Tua.
Asked about the challenges for the offense playing on the road, Tua replied: “A lot of challenges depending on the crowd noise and for guys who haven’t played in Chicago or who haven’t set foot there, the field I would say isn’t as good as other places. So we’ll have to figure that out with the cleats that we wear and whatnot, but the weather can change as well there. It could be sunny at one point and then it could just be a downpour. It could be hot; it could be cold. Who knows? It could be windy; it could be a slight breeze. Who knows?
“So we’ll have to be ready for any circumstance that we’re given. But these guys are a good team and we’re looking forward to the challenge they bring to us.”
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