Dolphins offensive line depth a concern

All throughout training camp experts and fans alike were extremely concerned with which players would take control of the two open offensive guard spots.

While those competitions remain critical in completing the makeup of the Miami Dolphins offensive line, a much larger weakness looms throughout the team. Especially for the front five of the offense.

The Dolphins are not a deep team and their depth at offensive line is one of the thinnest on the roster.

Huge contracts to free agents like Branden Albert and Ndamukong Suh while retaining players like Ryan Tannehill have limited the front office’s ability to bring in a larger quantity of quality players in case of injuries.

Yes, Miami can add more players with their $10 million in cap space, but doing so will pretty much ensure Olivier Vernon and other potential 2016 free agents will not be back after this season. The Dolphins needs to roll over as much cap space into next year’s off-season as possible.

This means while the Miami starters look great on paper and in one short preseason sample, an injury or two can derail the entire season.

Not helping the situation is the fact that both Dallas Thomas and Billy Turner, the front runners for the two open guard spots, are already banged up. Thomas is nursing a shoulder issue while Turner injured his thumb. They’re both playing through it now, but those issues could become massive problems as the season progresses.

To make matters worse, J.D. Walton and the third tier offensive line were wretched against Chicago. Now there is time to improve but with training camp over, the damage may already be done.

PhinPhanatic’s Brian Miller speculated that the Dolphins will carry nine offensive linemen going into the regular season. That includes Mike Pouncey, Ja’Wuan James, Albert, Turner, and Thomas – the expected starters.

Backing them up would be Jason Fox, Sam Brenner, Jeff Linkenbach and Jamil Douglas. Douglas received work at both guard sports, but everyone else has been used in practically every position on the line. Meaning Douglas would be the backup guard, Fox a backup tackle or guard, Linkenbach a backup guard or tackle, and Brenner could be used in every position, but chiefly center.

While the versatility is nice, the drop off isn’t. Going from Pouncey to Brenner or Albert to Fox for any significant time would spell curtains for the Dolphins.

And the fact that Albert is gradually recovering from a devastating injury and the two likely starting guards are already dinged up showed be cause for the most concern.

No NFL team has the depth to survive injuries to three out of their five starting offensive linemen. Should anything happen to Albert’s recovery coupled with Thomas reaggravating his shoulder injury or Turner breaking a thumb would test the depth intensely.

Spending big money on Evan Mathis or another big money guard won’t fix the problem either, it’ll only create more depth issues further on up the road.

The Dolphins have many positions where they simply cannot afford to test their depth. Some may be even worse than the offensive line.

However, if they are to live up to the hype some are building for them, they need a healthy offensive line for the 2015 season.

There’s just no other way around it.