Rishard Mathews Returns For Dolphins
By Brian Miller
The WR corp got a little jolt of juice today when Rishard Mathews returned to practice. A little. Mathews is still not a lock to make the roster but his return will likely mean the end of the Julius Pruitt return. Pruitt missed practice today with an undisclosed injury. The Dolphins are not thin but “thinned” at WR since losing Mathews early in camp and Armon Binns to an ACL/MCL tear. He was later released.
Mathews will step in and compete against Bryan Tyms, Marvin McNutt, Jeff Fuller, and the surging Chad Bumphis. The Dolphins are expected to carry five WR’s on their active roster Tyms is a candidate for the practice squad but Bumphis is getting solid work and is turning heads. The Dolphins may not be able to stash him on the practice squad.
For Mathews, who missed all of camp thus far, a return now should bode well for his chance to make the roster. McNutt has been up and down while Tyms has shown promise but not enough yet to warrant a roster spot.
The Dolphins thinned out their RB’s last week when they released Cameron Marshall. Marshall saw little time on the field in the HOF game and the Dolphins appear to be keen on giving Mike Gillislee and Jonas Gray as much work as possible. It’s likely both will make the final roster. The bigger question is where will the FB’s fit into the teams dynamics.
Evan Rodriquez is an H-Back as is Charles Clay. Both are receiving equal amounts of looks but it’s Jovorski Lane who appears to be looking at a possible roster exclusion. Thus far in pre-season Lane has produced very little as the Dolphins have shifted from the short yardage feature of a FB blocker to a more hybrid system utilizing a FB/HB system and Lane doesn’t fit that dual role. It bares watching as the pre-season progresses and cut dates loom. August 27th is the first round of cuts. A small one from 90 to 75 compared to the 25 player cut on August 31st to the league mandated 53.
While it seems the Dolphins have been in camp for a long time it’s easy to forget that they started a week earlier than 30 of the other NFL teams and while those teams are prepping for their 2nd pre-season game at the end of this week, the Dolphins will be prepping for their third.