Miami Dolphins: Predicting defensive stat leaders for 2022

The Miami Dolphins brought back nearly their entire defensive unit for 2022. Who will stand out and be the statistical leaders of the group?

While there were spurts of solid and even dominant football, the last few seasons have been an overall failure for the Miami Dolphins. But the one bright spot during the Brian Flores era was the defense.

They were as streaky as the team’s overall record, but Miami was able to strike fear in opposing offenses during certain stretches. They led the league in takeaways in 2020, and were the lone source of any sliver of identity that the Dolphins had last year.

And while the talk of the off-season is the acquisition of the players that will help bolster the offense, it may be the work that the front office did on the other side of the ball that truly ends up paying dividends. Chris Grier and company were able to bring back essentially the entire unit, and Miami will look to run back any success that they’ve had in the recent past.

But will things be the same? The new regime is offense-oriented, and the current roster of defensive players has Flores’ fingerprints all over it. Can Mike McDaniel and company find a way to yield similar, or even better, results in 2022?

Here are my predictions for the statistical leaders on the Miami Dolphins’ defense: