Latest news with #JonahSavaiinaea
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Studs and duds from the Dolphins' 24-24 preseason tie vs. the Bears
Positives outweighed the negatives for the Miami Dolphins in their 24-24 preseason tie with the Chicago Bears. While that was helped by the Bears resting the majority of their starters, including quarterback Caleb Williams, the Dolphins still did more than enough to give their fans optimism heading into the 2025 season. Here's who stood out most for the Dolphins on Sunday and who had a preseason opener to forget: Stud: First-team offensive line No, they didn't get the job done near the goal line on their first drive of the game. The list of negatives ends there, though. With Patrick Paul, James Daniels, and Jonah Savaiinaea taking over three of the starting roles and Larry Borom starting at right tackle in the place of the injured Austin Jackson, the Dolphins offense was rolling early. The Dolphins are hoping their rebuilt line can produce better results on the ground than the team managed in 2024. It wasn't perfect Sunday, but there's plenty of reason to be optimistic about their chances. Stud: Washington & Washington Tua Tagovailoa's first four completions Sunday were all to Malik Washington, including a clutch fourth down conversion. His fifth completion was to Tahj Washington. The latter finished the day as Miami's leading receiver with three receptions for 53 yards. Granted, with Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle watching from the sideline, Tagovailoa's non-Washington options were limited. But the two 2024 draft picks looked like a pair of players primed to make an impact in their second NFL seasons. Dud: Backup quarterbacks Woof. Zach Wilson made a couple plays downfield, connecting with Nick Westbrook-Ikhine and Tahj Washington for 35- and 34-yard pickups. But the former No. 2 overall draft pick struggled to get the ball out of his hand quickly and missed throws, including a lob to tight end Tanner Conner that should've been an easy score. It seemed Quinn Ewers was primed to hold Wilson's feet to the flame. But the seventh-round rookie's day was significantly worse than the veteran's. Ewers completed only five of his 18 passes and fumbled twice in Chicago territory. Stud: Dolphins special teams So far, so good for Craig Aukerman's squad. It didn't seem to matter who was back to return Sunday, they had room to race upfield into good field position. Dee Eskridge, A.J. Henning, and Erik Ezukanma took kick returns back 41, 38, and 37 yards, respectively. Malik Washington had a 19-yard punt return and Eskridge had a 16-yarder. Meanwhile, the Bears picked up no more than 22 yards on their kickoff returns and they didn't do much with 50- and 59-yard punts from Ryan Stonehouse and Jake Bailey, respectively. Dud: RB Jaylen Wright All signs pointed to a breakout year for Wright in 2025 after the team parted with Raheem Mostert earlier in the offseason. But the 2024 fourth-round pick has put together an underwhelming training camp and parlayed that into a ho-hum preseason debut. While he eventually broke loose for a 7-yard touchdown run in the second quarter, Wright was stuffed on three straight runs inside the Bears' 2-yard line on the Dolphins' first drive. The second-year back finished with 16 yards on nine carries, a paltry 1.8 yards per attempt. The two running backs behind him on the depth chart shined, though. Alexander Mattison bulldozed through the defense on a 1-yard touchdown run and broke loose on a 21-yard reception before his day ended with an injury. Rookie Ollie Gordon II took over and recorded 33 rushing yards and 39 receiving yards. Wright's spot on the 53-man roster is safe, but he'll need to show more if he hopes to keep Mattison and Gordon from eating up his regular season touches. Stud: EDGE Derrick McLendon It's tough sledding to stand out as an edge rusher with the Dolphins right now. Buried behind Chop Robinson, Jaelan Phillips, Bradley Chubb, and a couple veterans, McLendon has an uphill climb to earn a spot. But he played like a man possessed Sunday. While he picked up a roughing the passer penalty for landing on the Bears' Case Keenum, that's an easy mistake to forgive for a player who made so many plays in the backfield, including a sack. There simply aren't many roster spots left for the taking and McLendon may be the odd man out, regardless. But he made a strong case Sunday to stick around in Miami. This article originally appeared on Dolphins Wire: Dolphins 24, Bears 24: Studs and duds from Miami's preseason tie
Yahoo
08-08-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
How are Miami Dolphins rookies Kenneth Grant, Jonah Savaiinaea doing in training camp?
MIAMI GARDENS ― Miami Dolphins coaches are pleased with the first two weeks of training camp practices by rookie defensive tackle Kenneth Grant and guard Jonah Savaiinaea. "Awesome, awesome," Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver said of Grant. "He's everything we thought we'd be. I think his game particularly comes to life when the pads come on, right? And you've seen the impact it can have both in the middle of the pocket as a run defender and as a pass rusher." Dolphins defensive line coach Austin Clark is going to push Grant to go from good to great, in the same way he once did for Christian Wilkins. "I think he's working himself into shape," Clark said. "I think he works extremely hard. Very smart player. I would say that's the thing that's impressive, learning multiple spots, stuff like that. Pleased where he's at, but he knows we got a long way to go and fired up for these next couple of practices." Dolphins rookie Kenneth Grant player to watch in Chicago Weaver, like all of us, is looking forward to watching Grant face the Bears' offensive line in joint practice on Friday, Aug. 8. His message for rookies? "To trust their technique and fundamentals in the training," Weaver said. "The thing that happens a lot, particularly with younger players, is when they get in that, the fire, and you're outside of your normal, where you're practicing against the same guy every day, is they start to revert back to old habits. We're trying to make this new training their new habits." Dolphins rookie Jonah Savaiinaea is a starter Meanwhile, fellow rookie guard Jonah Savaiinaea has also been solid. "I like where things are at," Dolphins offensive line coach Butch Barry said of Savaiinaea. "You know, everything's a process, right? And camp is, you know, we're two weeks in." Savaiinaea is big and strong and quick. But the technique utilized in Miami's offense will be a first-year work in progress. "Does he have a lot of stuff to work on?" Barry said. "Absolutely he's got a lot of stuff to work on and we haven't played real games or anything like that... I think the process of which he goes about it and understanding how to be a pro, we've got some really good guys in the room that can teach him how to be a pro." How is Savaiinaea taking to the coaching? "Every day there's flashes of things that we really like," Barry said. "There's things that we're coaching it better. I coach him on something, he tries to fix it. And every time as a coach that you see somebody take something that you give them and they try to fix it, I mean, that's what you do it for. And that's, so we've seen a lot of good things and we've got a long way to go." What does Barry have for Savaiinaea entering that joint practice? "You're going out there to play football, something you've done your whole life, right?" Barry said. "It's against another opponent... And so it's gonna be very intense, but he's already an intense person. He's already a very focused person. So I think he'll be in a good place mentally where he's got to be." Joe Schad: Miami Dolphins' Zach Sieler is the real deal. Nothing given. Everything earned. 53-man roster projection: Miami Dolphins entering Bears preseason Week 1 game Deal! Miami Dolphins and Zach Sieler strike deal on contract extension Joe Schad is a journalist covering the Miami Dolphins and the NFL at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jschad@ and follow him on Instagram and on X @schadjoe. Sign up for Joe's free weekly Dolphins Pulse Newsletter. Help support our work by subscribing today This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Dolphins Kenneth Grant doing 'awesome'; Jonah Savaiinaea 'flashes'
Yahoo
25-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Miami Dolphins says rookie guard Jonah Savaiianea 'made of the right stuff'
MIAMI GARDENS — Miami Dolphins rookie guard Jonah Savaiianaea has been jamming with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. It's a savvy move. "He's got a voice and he can play every instrument," Savaiinaea said of Tua after the Dolphins' third training camp practice. The Dolphins traded up in the second round of the last NFL draft to select Savaiinaea, a large and powerful man with good feet. It's just a bonus that Savaiinaea also plays the piano and guitar. What coach Mike McDaniel likes most about Savaiinaea already is his commitment to getting it right. "You can tell the veterans believe in him," McDaniel said. "And so he's doing a great job, fired up, because you have to earn that in a real way, veteran trust." Miami Dolphins believe in rookie Jonah Savaiinaea Savaiinaea seems mature for a 21-year-old. "I take that to heart because I come in with, I hold myself to a higher standard every time I touch this facility," Savaiinaea said. "You've got guys here that want to win. I'm here playing for something bigger than myself. Not only myself and my family, but also for the guys next to me." Fellow rookie Kenneth Grant said he and Savaiinaea have a quiet competition to see who is first in the building and who leaves last. "If it's a competition, I mean, KG's not even close to me," Jonah said with a smile. Added McDaniel on Savaiinaea: "When veterans can see that he's made of the right stuff, that's the best news I could get." Miami Dolphins training camp: rookie Jonah Savaiinaea impresses Savaiinaea shared that he skipped a 2025 summer vacation and opted to stay and train in South Florida. At times in the past, he has played at a weight around 330 pounds, but he plans to operate in Miami's zone read offense at around 320 pounds. He has demonstrated power in practice. But he can move. The new guard duo of Savaiinaea and James Daniels should be a big improvement for Miami this season. Veteran tackle Austin Jackson has been encouraged. "We're young in the interior and really athletic as well, so you can expect a lot of speed, strength," Jackson said. "I think we have the stamina to be fast the whole game, the entire game." Dolphins discipline: Miami Dolphins players running post-practice training camp sprints. Zero to hero? Miami Dolphins' Zach Wilson explains why he chose jersey zero Tua Tagovailoa: Miami Dolphins' relationship with Tyreek Hill 'work in progress.' Joe Schad is a journalist covering the Miami Dolphins and the NFL at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jschad@ and follow him on Instagram and on X @schadjoe. Sign up for Joe's free weekly Dolphins Pulse Newsletter. Help support our work by subscribing today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Dolphins veterans 'believe in' rookie guard Jonah Savaiinaea
Miami Herald
15-07-2025
- Sport
- Miami Herald
Kelly: History says plenty of Dolphins rookies will be put in position to start
The Miami Dolphins have Jonah Savaiinaea penciled in as one of the team's starting guards from the day they drafted the University of Arizona standout in the second round. Whether he's on the left or the right will be determined in training camp, whenever he signs his deal and shows up. Kenneth Grant, Jordan Phillips and Zeek Biggers will each play 400-plus snaps this season if healthy. All three college nose tackles will be given an opportunity to cement themselves as Miami's starting defensive linemen because that unit's bare with the exception of Zach Sieler, who might participate in a training camp hold-in, limiting his practices while he and his agent pushes for a new contract, and nose tackle Benito Jones. And there's literally nobody standing in Jason Marshall Jr.'s way of becoming a rookie starter at cornerback for the Dolphins. That means five of the Dolphins' 20 rookies who report for training camp on Tuesday have a legit chance to become day one starters for Miami. The recent addition of Pro Bowl safety Minkah Fitzpatrick makes it highly unlikely that Dante Trader Jr., the Maryland standout Miami selected in the fifth round, becomes a rookie starter. He'd have to beat out veterans like Ashtyn Davis, Ifeatu Melifonwu, and Elijah Campbell for one of the top four safety spots on the depth chart. That's not impossible, but it's also not likely. It's more realistic that Trader becomes a core special teams contributor considering he excels playing the third phase of the game in college. Marshall Jr. has the best runway to become a day one starter out of all late-round selections because Kader Kohou is the only established cornerback more securely fixed to the 53-man roster. Marshall, who had an uneven collegiate career at the University of Florida, will compete with veterans Kendall Sheffield, Artie Burns, Cam Smith, Ethan Bonner, Isaiah Johnson, Ryan Cooper Jr., and fellow rookies B.J. Adams and Ethan Robinson for one of the three starting cornerback roles in Miami's secondary. Last season the Dolphins carried six cornerbacks on the 53-man roster. Rookie tailback Ollie Gordon II, a 2024 fifth-round pick, and quarterback Quinn Ewers, the Dolphins' seventh-round pick, will have a shot to unseat a top backup at their positions, and whether or not they achieve that will likely depend on how quickly both digest Miami's playbook, and how they perform in the exhibition season. Coach Mike McDaniel has been known to elevate rookie tailbacks up the depth chart quickly, going back to his days as the run game coordinator with the San Francisco 49ers, so don't be surprised if Gordon finds a role in the backfield rotation. His size (6-foot-2, 225 pounds) and physical running style could become beneficial to converting short yardage situations, which is an area the Dolphins have struggled for three seasons. From a defensive tackle standpoint, the Dolphins have benefited from plenty of rookie contributors over the years. But most have gotten off to slow starts. Christian Wilkins, a first-round pick in 2019, recorded 56 tackles, two sacks, forced a fumble and recovered one in the 729 defensive snaps he played in 16 games. However, that 2019 defense was a disaster considering that was Miami's tanking season. Davon Godchaux, a fifth round pick from the 2017 draft class, was the rookie contributor on the defensive line before Wilkins' arrival. Godchaux, who is entering his ninth NFL season with the New Orleans Saints projected as a starter, contributed 40 tackles and forced one fumble in the 500 snaps he played over 15 games. It should be pointed out that he only started five of those games in the final season where Ndamukong Suh was with the Dolphins. There was also Raekwon Davis, a second round pick in 2020, who contributed 40 tackles in the 539 snaps he played over 16 games (12 starts). Davis started 48 games for the Dolphins over the next four seasons, but never contributed more than the 40 tackles he recorded as a rookie, and has produced just two career sacks. As for offensive linemen drafted by the Dolphins this decade, they've had varying outcomes. But few of them thrived as rookies. Laremy Tunsil is the one immediate success story. He served as the starting left guard on one of Miami's better offensive lines in 2016 before moving to left tackle the next season. Tunsil, whom the Dolphins traded to Houston in 2019 for a treasure chest of draft picks and players, has been selected to five Pro Bowls, and is expected to serve as the Washington Commanders' starting left tackle. Since then Isaac Asiata (a 2017 fifth-round pick), Michael Dieter (a 2019 third-round pick), Austin Jackson (a 2020 first-round pick), Robert Hunt (a second-round pick in 2020), Solomon Kindley (a fourth-rounder in 2020), Liam Eichenberg (a second rounder in 2021), Larnel Coleman (seventh-rounder in 2021), Ryan Hayes (seven-rounder in 2023), and Patrick Paul (second-rounder in 2024) have all struggled. Jackson, who started at left tackle as a rookie and was eventually moved to left guard his second season because of his struggles, eventually settled in as a productive starting right tackle. But his blossoming took place in his third season. Hunt was the closest to an immediate success, and is having the most impressive career of the nine offensive linemen drafted since 2017. Eichenberg has struggled in most of his 52 starts for the Dolphins the past four seasons. It explains why he's started games at all five positions on Miami's offensive line, but he seems to be settling in as a valued backup. Paul was groomed all last season to replace Terron Armstead as Miami's starting left tackle, but the 337 offensive snaps he logged on the field as a rookie produced an uneven performance. Miami's hope is that Paul, who is 6-foot-7, 332 pounds, will blossom in his second NFL season as he begins to settle in at left tackle.
Miami Herald
14-07-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Kelly: Jonah Savaiinaea and other second-round picks can create NFL necessary change
Jonah Savaiinaea's football conditioning, mastery of the offense, playbook and his technique are critical to the Miami Dolphins' success in 2025. Dolphins management traded a significant amount of resources to move up 11 spots in the 2025 NFL Draft to select the University of Arizona offensive lineman early in the second round with the intent of making him one of the team's two starting guards. His development is a major story line of training camp, which technically begins Tuesday when the rookies report. But unfortunately for the team, a healthy Savaiinaea might be forced to sit out days, if not weeks of training camp because the versatile and athletic lineman plays an important role when it comes to the NFL's future, and its workforce's multidecade push for contracts to become fully guaranteed. First-round picks are typically the only players in the NFL who have their entire contracts fully guaranteed at the initial signing. That has been the case since 2011 when the Collective Bargaining Agreement changed, and subsequently drastically reduced the rookie salary scale. However, two of the 32 second-round picks had their entire rookie deals guaranteed this year, and agents around the league (and the NFLPA if they smarten up) intend to create a domino effect that possibly changes how the NFL does business. If each 2025 second-round pick holds out until his four-year deal (which is worth $7.1 million for the last pick (64), and $11.8 million for the 33rd pick) is fully guaranteed then that becomes two of the seven rounds of the draft that have their rookie deals guaranteed. And maybe in the next year or two it will become the third-rounders, and the year or two after that the fourth rounders, and so on and so on. Football is the most popular profitable, and brutal American professional sport, and ironically it's the only one where the contracts players sign aren't guaranteed. But what most people don't know is that there isn't any Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) language that makes NBA, NHL and MLB contracts guaranteed, it's just the way those sports have done business over time, and it eventually became the culture of those leagues. That's what needs to happen to football, and there's no better time than now considering collegiate NIL contracts are steadily soaring (SEC starters reportedly earn at least $800,000 based on agent sources). We will soon get to the point where college football teams might be offering a player projected as a second or third-round pick more money than the NFL, which pays rookies a signing bonus based on the round they are selected in, and a $840,000 base salary this season. Coincidentally, that base salary goes up based on playing-time incentives for young players not drafted in the first or second round because they aren't eligible. That might explain why former tight end Durham Smythe was nearly making double what Mike Gesicki was earning in the fourth year of their rookie deals when they came from the same draft. The difference was Smythe was a fourth-round pick, selected two round behind Gesicki. The prevalence of guaranteed contracts in the NBA, MLB and NHL are largely produced by the demand for these top athletes, rather than a specific mandate in CBA language. But NFL owners, and the people who work for them on behalf of the team, are dead set against this, especially since the NFL has the largest workforce. The league was actually caught colluding against that workforce to prevent guaranteed salaries based on an independent investigation recently done. This past decade only two quarterbacks received full guaranteed contracts. Minnesota gave Kirk Cousins one in 2018, and Cleveland gave Deshaun Watson the second in the five-year, $230 million renegotiated deal he got after the Browns traded for him in 2022. An independent investigation found that NFL owners and management colluded to ensure that nobody followed Watson during the offseason Lamar Jackson, a two-time MVP, because a free agent in 2023, and nobody but the Ravens bid on his services. And what was the NFL's punishment for these collusion findings? A slap on the wrist, maybe. Nothing will ever change until a select group of NFL players and their agents take a stand, and this might be that time. Maybe missing the team's starting guard for the first month of training camp will force the Dolphins to eventually cave on their collusive efforts. After all, we're haggling over guaranteeing $2.4 million more of the $11.3 million Savaiinaea is expected to earn during the next four years. Keep in mind that NFL owners haven't taken a financial loss in decades, and the salary cap has nearly doubled from a decade ago when the cap was $143.3 million. It has risen by $135.9 million in a decade, to $279.2 million which means each team's profits have doubled as well since the cap is based on profit sharing. And that's annually. We're at the point where Dolphins owner Steve Ross has reportedly turned down a $10 billion offer to sell his franchise, and sports holdings, which he initially paid $1.1 billion for in 2009. Talk about a return on an investment! So crying poverty isn't the right approach, especially to player advocates like myself, who can name two dozen players I've covered since 2007 struggling with endless medical issues they developed from playing this brutal sport. At some point something has to give if the NFLPA wants to create change, inching toward guaranteed contracts for its workforce. This is up to the teams and agents to figure out, but at some point the NFL has to negotiate in good faith, which would be a complete about-face of how they've done business for 50-plus years. Hopefully Savaiinaea and these 28 other second-round picks are willing to become the 32 players who create the necessary change by sidelining themselves, holding out.
