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Marcel Louis-Jacques, ESPN
MIAMI — Jaelan Phillips stepped to the makeshift lectern at the Miami Dolphins practice facility on Monday for his first football-specific media availability since sustaining a torn right Achilles tendon in November.
The fourth-year linebacker was activated from the physically unable to perform list and made his training camp debut earlier that morning — his first practice in nearly nine months.
The walkthrough wasn’t enough for him, he joked.
“I’m just happy to be back out there. It was a little bit of a tease,” he said, smiling. “I’m ready to start hitting some things, but it was great. I’m just so blessed to have my health and be out here running around with the boys.”
Phillips recorded six sacks in a five-game stretch from Week 7 to Week 12 last season. The injury occurred toward the end of a blowout win over the New York Jets, ending his season.
It was documented on the HBO docuseries “Hard Knocks” and showed an emotional Phillips brought to tears as he processed what had just happened. The former first-round pick said he has watched the episode “several” times and learned to turn the experience into a motivator.
“When it happened, obviously I was just so devastated,” he said. “I felt like I was really hitting my stride. … I said I was hooping, I was balling out. (Head Coach) Mike (McDaniel) had told me before the game, ‘This is your opportunity to kind of be a household name,’ so I was riding high. Like probably the highest I’ve been in my NFL career, and then to be humbled just like that, it was devastating. But right when that happened, I remembered going to the shower and I was crying. I just told myself, like ‘This is OK. I’m going to attack this. I’m going to get over this and this is going to make me stronger at the end of the day.’
“I really thanked God. I really said thank you. Thank you for giving me this opportunity, because I know it’s going to make me a monster.”
McDaniel joked that he believed Phillips would have been the “No. 1 violator” of doing more than his rehab allowed, simply because of his work ethic; Phillips said coming back from his injury tested his patience.
The linebacker said he couldn’t walk for essentially the first four months following the injury, and even when he graduated from running on a treadmill to running on solid ground, the soreness he felt afterward forced him to dial back his training.
Despite starting training camp on the PUP list, Phillips was an active presence on the sidelines and in meeting rooms, particularly with his newest teammates. He said he didn’t even celebrate his activation because his number one priority was gaining his teammates’ respect.
Chop Robinson, whom the Dolphins selected with the No. 21 overall pick in this year’s draft, has seen extra snaps while Phillips and linebacker Bradley Chubb were sidelined, but the rookie was exhilarated by his return.
“Having him on the field is just insane,” Robinson said. “Like just seeing how big he is and how good he can move and watching it from TV — because I’ve been watching him since he was in college — so watching it from TV and then being on the field with him and seeing it in person is just worlds different. And then off the field, he is just like a mentor to me. We go into the film room, he talks to me, helps me out, gives me keys and everything.
“I’m just a listener, listening to the guys that have been out here making plays.”
Phillips said Robinson is “better than I was as a rookie” although he wants him to get more comfortable celebrating his wins.
The rookie has made plays throughout training camp, but it’s often his older teammates who celebrate.
“Yeah, that’s just how I am,” Robinson said. “I’m just a next-play mentality type of guy, but JP, he’s getting it out of me. When I made a few plays against the Falcons in the joint practice, I was getting a little excited. He was like, ‘I need more of that.’ He was getting excited for me, so the more I just get confident and make plays, more stuff will start to come out.”
Phillips said he feels confident he can pick up where he left off from last season, when he finished with 6.5 sacks in eight games.
To get a better idea of what to expect from his recovery, he consulted with several NFL players who came back from a torn Achilles, including Kirk Cousins, Cam Akers and Shaquil Barrett — each of whom, he said, felt like they were able to make a full recovery.
“They don’t feel like they had to miss a step, whether it’s a year or two years afterwards, they don’t feel there is an injury there,” Phillips said. “That just definitely reassured me, like I said, the more I’ve been able to do, the less I’ve been thinking about the Achilles and the more I’ve been building confidence. It feels great.”
Phillips’ return is a major boost for a Dolphins defense still acclimating to first-year coordinator Anthony Weaver. With him and Chubb sidelined, Weaver turned to rookies Robinson and Mohamed Kamara, and veterans Quinton Bell and Emmanuel Ogbah to set the edge.
It’s unclear whether Phillips will play in Saturday’s preseason game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but even having him back in practice has provided a jolt of energy.
“It will definitely help. Any time you have Jaelan on the field, it always helps everybody else,” Ogbah said. “We’re happy to see him back out there, but the guys in the room are still working to get better every day. Working together, that’s what training camp is about.”
The Dolphins exercised Phillips’ fifth-year option this offseason, a show of faith that he said “means the world.” It also comes with a belief that he can return to and surpass the form he displayed last season.
The early indications are that he’ll do exactly that.
“I’ve noticed that he is who I thought he was. This is a guy that is on a mission that is bigger than just being a player on an NFL football team,” McDaniel said. “He’s trying to position himself where he can feel that he’s the top of his class at what he does. And that he doesn’t take a day off from that. I think I’ve seen some maturity from him and understanding the bigger picture and not being too shortsighted with trying to be involved in football.
“He’s been very disciplined in not overstepping the boundaries outlined for him, that we’ve had numerous discussions on from our training staff. I think that he is in a great place, and he is taking steps every day.”