The Miami Dolphins are a young and inexperienced team heading into 2026, and with that, they’ll have to heavily rely on some of those first and second-year players to play key roles this season.
One of those players is defensive lineman Jordan Phillips, who the Dolphins took in the fifth round (No. 143 overall) in the 2025 NFL draft out of Maryland.
As a rookie, Phillips played 43% of the team’s defensive snaps in 17 games and started in 16 games. He finished his first season in the NFL with 34 tackles (one for a loss) and a quarterback hit.
After a recent OTA session, local reporters asked Phillips why he plays with so much energy and enthusiasm, and his response was great.
“So say, for example, your pet gets loose and just runs outthere in the road. Are you just going to get up and just slowly go about or are you going to run? Like you got to have urgency about everything that you do,” Phillips said. “This is a fast and physical game so you can’t walk on the field. You can’t just slow jog. No, you got to take the field because at the end of the day, there’s a guy that’s lined up in front of you who is going to try to kill you. So you got to take the field the right way. It’s just a mindset. It’s a mentality…
“Like I said, it’s just a mentality. Austin Clark, he does an amazing job of just emphasizing that amongst everybody and like I said, Jeff (Hafley) does a great job of setting the standard about how you do one thing is how you do everything. Like I said, you don’t want to be lackadaisical in no aspect of your life. You know, you want to do everything the right way so that’s what it’s about.”
If the Dolphins had 53 guys with that mindset, they’d probably be more competitive in 2026 despite the obvious talent difference that they’ll have in most of their games this year.
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This article originally appeared on Dolphins Wire: Young Dolphins DL has great answer to why he plays with so much energy
Reporting by Mike Masala, Dolphins Wire / Dolphins Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
