MIAMI -- There's bad luck, and then there's what happened to the Miami Dolphins' outside linebackers room last season.
Third-year star Jaelan Phillips suffered a season-ending Achilles tear in Week 12. Bradley Chubb five weeks later tore his ACL in garbage time of a blowout loss. The very next week, Andrew Van Ginkel suffered a foot injury that knocked him out of the season finale and kept him out of Miami's wild-card loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Without their top three edge rushers, the Dolphins' pass rush fell apart late in the season. It's an area the team hopes returns to form under new defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver.
But any success the Dolphins' pass rush has next season begins with Phillips' and Chubb's return from injury. As of now, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said there is no official timeline for either player's return -- in part for their own good.
"They have been doing phenomenal," McDaniel said at the NFL's annual league meetings. "Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips are extreme versions of, 'Hey, we need to make sure they aren't chasing a timeline because as competitors, they will achieve that timeline and it might be at the worst for their bodies.' So relative to timelines, we specifically don't have those for those two.
"We've had to mandate that they have a week off of rehab just recently, both of them, because they literally live there. ... They're both really doing exactly what you'd expect from those two individuals, which is absolutely attacking that process, but doing it from a perspective that they don't want to get healthy for one week, they want to get healthy for the whole season. So that's what they're working towards."
Phillips missed a game for the first time in his NFL career last season in Week 2 with a back injury, then consecutive games two weeks later with an abdominal injury. He still finished with 6.5 sacks -- two short of a career-high -- despite playing in just eight games.
The former top-ranked high school recruit in the country once medically retired in college at UCLA after several injuries, but he said recovery from tearing his Achilles has been a different process.
"It is something that's kind [of] new to me," he said. "I've never had a lower extremity injury like that long-term. So it's been cool. It's been a new experience just learning my body and figuring out what to do, what's best for me."
He is walking without a boot or crutches after undergoing surgery in November.
Chubb underwent surgery in January on his right knee; he has twice torn the ACL in his left knee, most recently in 2019. The average recovery time from a torn ACL is nine to 12 months, which suggests Chubb may miss the start of the regular season having suffered his injury on Dec. 31.
As for Miami's plan while its top two pass-rushers are out, Van Ginkel signed a two-year deal with the Minnesota Vikings this offseason, leaving 2022 seventh-round pick Cameron Goode and practice squad linebacker Zeke Vandenburgh as the team's lone two healthy pass-rushers.
The Dolphins bolstered the position by signing veteran Shaquil Barrett to a one-year contract. He was highly productive with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, recording 37.5 sacks from 2019 to 2021. The 31-year-old has 7.5 sacks combined the past two seasons but was released by the Bucs this offseason.
"I still got a lot to prove. Especially getting cut from another team," Barrett said. "That adds another whole fuel to the fire right there. The Dolphins are going to be happy they signed me. Tampa is going to be mad they let me go because this year that I'm planning on having and the success that we're about to have as a team is going to be amazing."
Even after signing Barrett, the Dolphins have a need at pass-rusher; with so much capital invested into Chubb and Phillips, they may not opt for one in the first round of this month's NFL draft. But McDaniel has an affinity for pass-rushers, and it wouldn't be a surprise to see Miami select one in the later rounds.
"I'm of the belief that you can't have too many of those guys," he said in 2022. "I think the more quality guys you have, the fresher they can play, the more issues they give you offensively because now you're preparing for six different pass-rush moves instead of two that a particular player has, those type of things, and then they can play fresher during the game. It's just such an incredibly important position that I'm all for that.
"You'd have to talk me out of not trying to pitch to [Dolphins general manager] Chris [Grier] to draft a defensive lineman or edge every year because it's that valuable."