Seahawks game preview + Byron Jones' groin injury

Safid Deen wrote:The Dolphins will continue to monitor cornerback Byron Jones' groin injury, which caused him to miss all but one series in the past two games.

“Byron is working extremely hard to get back as soon as he can,” Dolphins coach Brian Flores said of Jones on Monday, less than a week before the team hosts the Seattle Seahawks at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday.

“He’s in here working and making a lot of improvement. We’ll see how this goes this week.”

Jones, who played in 49 of 50 games with the Dallas Cowboys before joining the Dolphins, did not play in Miami’s 31-13 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars on hursday.

finskev wrote:We need All the Help that we can get to Beat Seattle including Engine Trouble with the Plane where the have to Land Multiple Time for Repairs and Heat Index over 100 Sunday Afternoon .
Plus We will have to Score over 30 Points at Less Flores can come up with Masterful Gameplan to contain there Offense.

white1 wrote:Totally agree.  At the same time, as you said, Wilson is having a career defining season to this point.  It's early, but he is absolutely on fire and lighting up the score board.

Our defense is going to need to take another step forward from the Jax game.  

Overall, I think it's just too much talent for us to overcome.  But this team has surprised us before!

white1 wrote:In their defense, they have played Atlanta, New England and Dallas - all teams with prolific offenses and weapons at multiple positions to go along with Pro Bowl caliber quarterbacks.

Miami could very well say the same thing - we also faced New England, the Buffalo offense looks worlds better than last year, and we got lucky against the Jags in that missing Chark, their starting Center, and having their LT ejected allowed us to face a more watered-down version of what was a prolific offense.

I'd give the edge to Seattle in that they won the games and we didn't, and I rank their opponents higher than ours so far.

rightchea wrote:Yeah, it sounds like he will be out for the next couple of games

The team’s highest-paid player (and best cover corner so far this season) missed the last game and both practices this week with a groin injury.

If Jones can’t go, the Dolphins will have a decision to make: Stick Noah Igbinoghene on Metcalf, like they did with Stefon Diggs in Week 2 with little success, or turn to Xavien Howard, who is finding his form after spending the offseason rehabbing a major knee injury?

Added Dolphins defensive backs coach Gerald Alexander: “Sometimes it’s not just as easy as saying, ‘X, go cover him.’ There’s a lot of things that go beyond that because I think Tyler Lockett also needs attention as far as the coverage is concerned. They have weapons.”

rightchea wrote:I feel like Miami will try to play them the same way Miami played the Jags. Not allowing a lot of deep passes and go for tackles underneath. Miami has a lot of work ahead of them when it comes to playing against Seattle this week.

It wasn’t so much what Byron Jones did Thursday that points to him playing Sunday, but what he said.

By making the star cornerback and Dolphins’ highest-paid player available to reporters after he did rehab work in front of the media earlier in the day, coaches and staff are signaling that there’s a good chance he’ll be available Sunday against the Seahawks.

...

The Dolphins, unannounced, put Jones on a Zoom call with Miami media after Thursday’s practice.

Here’s what he said about the groin injury that kept him out of all but four plays the last two weeks:

“I feel really good. Rehab has been on schedule, which is great. Honestly, it’s day by day. I felt really good today so we’ll see where we’re at.”

When asked what physical threshold he needs to reach to play in Week 4, Jones responded:

“We just have to keep running through the paces. Today was a really good challenge. And tomorrow is going to be a bigger challenge. As you go on, you continue to push yourself and gain confidence. You start at 50 percent, then you go to 65 percent, then 75 percent. It’s just about the workload, the speed, how the recovery is and how I feel the next day. But I’d say we’re on a good track.”

An important disclaimer: It’s entirely possible that the Dolphins, knowing the message having Jones speak to reporters would send about his likelihood to play, are trying to fool the Seahawks.

Perhaps Jones won’t be ready just two weeks after getting hurt.

But the more likely scenario — based on how he looked running, catching and changing directions during practice Thursday — is that he’s made real progress and the team is hopeful he can go.