Miami Dolphins Week 1 Notes, Quotes and Anecdotes

The Miami Dolphins lost wide receiver DeVante Parker to an injury in the first half of their season-opening loss at New England

The Dolphins had a surprise in the starting lineup against the New England Patriots, with rookie third-round pick Brandon Jones lining up at safety opposite Bobby McCain.

In the Dolphins depth chart released for the first time the week of the opener, it was veteran Eric Rowe who was listed as a starter in the secondary.

Jones finished the game with 10 tackles, the most for a Dolphins player making his NFL debut since 2016 when cornerback Xavien Howard had 11 at Seattle.

Parker leaves the game

This was the nightmare scenario for the Dolphins when it came to wide receiver DeVante Parker.

The 2015 first-round pick got off to a good start in the season opener with New England, making four catches in the first half, but his afternoon ended when he left the game with a hamstring injury.

Parker battled a hamstring issue throughout training camp, so this obviously is a situation that needs monitoring. Coach Brian Flores did not provide an update on Parker's status after the game.

Young on the line

For the first time since 2008, the Dolphins had two rookies starting an opener on the offensive line with Austin Jackson and Solomon Kindley.

In 2008, it was tackle Jake Long and guard Donald Thomas, though Thomas sustained a season-ending Achilles injury in that game, a 24-17 loss against the New York Jets.

Along with Jackson and Kindley, others who made their NFL debut for the Dolphins on Sunday were DT Raekwon Davis, LS Blake Ferguson, G/T Robert Hunt, CB Noah Igbinoghene and Jones.

The only Dolphins player who did not see action against New England was rookie quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.

At 20 years and 291 days old, Igbinoghene became the youngest player to appear in a game for the Dolphins.

Inactive info

The list of Dolphins inactives consisted of WR Malcolm Perry, WR Lynn Bowden Jr., S Clayton Fejedelem, DE Jason Strowbridge and T Adam Pankey.

It was the first time since he entered the NFL in 2016 that Fejedelem had missed a game. He played 64 games for the Cincinnati Bengals the past four seasons.

Fejedelem was listed as doubtful on the final injury report of the week with a pectoral injury.

Quote unquote

Coach Brian Flores: "I felt like overall the tackling could have been better. The conditioning could have been better. Obviously without — we’re not going to make any excuses on whether we had preseason games. They didn’t have any preseason games either. But all things we can improve on. We can improve the tackling. We can improve the run defense. We can improve the conditioning. We’ll work on those things over the course of the week and we’ve got a tough opponent next week and we’ll get back to it.”

DT Christian Wilkins: “Honestly, I’ve just been working hard all year – all offseason, all training camp and everything to try to be in the best shape and be in the best position to help this team win. But ultimately, I don’t care about the big plays if it doesn’t result in wins. It’s cool to make big plays but I’d rather win at the end of the day. It’s all good and fun; but I’d trade in stats and plays for a win in the win column.”

LB Jerome Baker: "We’ve just got to play together. We’ve got to focus on stopping the run and we’ve also got to play together and just play disciplined. We came up short today; but it’s going to be a long season, so we just definitely got to get on top of that.”

QB Ryan Fitzpatrick: "When you’re going against the Patriots, you know you have to take advantage of the possessions that you get and having a couple of turnovers there doesn’t help, but I thought up front we played well. I’ve got to play better in my part and then we’ll move on to next week.”