Dolphins Putting Jackson on IR; Armstead a Question Mark
The Miami Dolphins will be down one starting tackle for their Week 2 game against the Baltimore Ravens, and it could end up being two before kickoff.
Head coach Mike McDaniel said before practice Friday that the team would be placing starting right tackle Austin Jackson on injured reserve and that veteran left tackle Terron Armstead would be limited in practice and listed as questionable for the game at M&T Bank Stadium.
Jackson sustained an ankle injury in the 20-7 victory against the New England Patriots last Sunday, while Armstead had to miss two snaps in the fourth quarter because of a toe injury.
Armstead's availability for the Baltimore game likely will depend on pain tolerance.
"If he's worried about it, it'll go all the way up to the game because he will do whatever it takes to play," McDaniel said. "If he's feeling pretty good about it, it won't basically. He's a guy that has shown time and again in his career that he's been able to put together a really good game by piecing together practice, and he's showed me that first-hand with his vet management stuff that we've done with him. And then when he does get out there, it's obvious to me and all of his teammates that he deliberately approaches every rep that we have, and gets reps and gets stuff out of things even when he's not doing it. So I know if he can, he will."
TERRON ARMSTEAD'S HISTORY AND BEING CAUTIOUS
Injuries, of course, were not the one concern when the Dolphins signed Armstead in the offseason to a five-year, $75 million contract through the 2026 season.
Armstead is a three-time Pro Bowl player, but he has never played a full season in the NFL. Since he became a full-time starter in his second season with the New Orleans Saints in 2014, Armstead has missed 38 games because of injuries, an average of almost five per season.
While Armstead talked in the preseason of having a goal of playing a full season, the Dolphins naturally are more concerned about the long term and making sure a one-week injury doesn't turn into a one-month problem.
"He does a great job in practice, but his spirit and energy is different in games because he loves playing games," McDaniel said. "He's played games with worse injuries, I think. But what we don't want to do is set stuff back further along in the season. I don't think he'll be in a position to where his mobility would be too constricted. He's played with injuries before and has all those veteran tricks, if you can't move, as far as how to kind of balance it out. If he's able to go, it will be full steam ahead with him just because that's the way he is."
BEING CAREFUL WITH AUSTIN JACKSON
As for Jackson, this will be the second time in three years he'll have to go on IR with an ankle injury, though this time it's the right ankle as opposed to the left in 2020.
"It was kind of it was kind of close," McDaniel said. "Like I've articulated, ankles are kind of finicky and really what we wanted to avoid after we took all consideration into effect was that we don't want it to linger for the whole season. Really like the work that he's gotten done. So want to protect him from that."
With Jackson out, the expectation is that Greg Little will start at right tackle. He's the one who replaced Jackson after he was injured against New England in his first appearance in a regular season game since the Dolphins acquired him in a trade with the Carolina Panthers last August."
"Very, very confident in him," McDaniel said. "He did a great job jumping in there. And he's really made the most of all of his reps. I think that guys are confident. As a matter of fact, I know they're confident in him, as well as the coaching staff is, so it'll be a great opportunity for him in this game."
THE 2022 NFL INJURED RESERVE RULES
Under new rules for 2022, players going on injured reserve after the 53-player roster was set have to miss four games, as opposed to three last season.
Teams can have up to eight players return from an IR during the regular and the same player can do it more than once, though each time counts against the limit.
Cornerback Byron Jones, who is out for the first four games of the season while on Reserve/PUP, does not count against the eight-player limit.
