Brock Bowers’ injury news turns the Miami Dolphins’ Week 1 outlook upside down—but the ‘what’ isn’t the most important detail
The Miami Dolphins play in Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon. They’ll do so while missing tight end Brock Bowers, who is OUT for the Raiders.
The forecast for the Miami Dolphins‘ Week 1 matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders just got turned upside down. Both the Dolphins and Raiders come into this season while a whole lot of ‘new’ to their name.
But it’s the newest stunning turn of events that’s shifting the outlook for the game itself. The Raiders’ star tight end Brock Bowers? He’s out on Sunday. Bowers underwent a meniscus trim earlier this summer. Tthe news has officially confirmed that he will be out against Miami. How does Bowers’ absence change the landscape for Miami?
Brock Bowers is officially OUT versus the Miami Dolphins — here’s how it changes the game for Jeff Hafley
Well, beyond the obvious, the Bowers news has the potential to change the way that Miami plays on the back end. Bowers is the kind of player that you often bracket or roll coverage towards. He’s a monster with the ball in his hands, too — making him the Raiders’ most dangerous receiving threat.
Jeff Hafley talked about those challenges of facing a top-flight tight end earlier this week. Here’s how he said the challenges were different than a top-flight wide receiver.
“A tight end could all of a sudden wind up in the C area over here, playing the tight end position, and then shift on the snap and be over here. They can line them up in the slot and then go one-by-three and put them on the backside of a nub. They can go three-by-one and put them all the way flexed out like an X receiver,” said Hafley. “This gives you another element where they can move him around even more, so you just got to have a good plan because you better know where he is, and we’ll have a bunch of adjustments for that.”
It turns out the Dolphins won’t need the coverage checks. And because the news dropped on Wednesday afternoon, Miami can now spend the rest of this week tinkering on their defensive game plan for the rest of the personnel.
If the Dolphins planned on throwing extra attention at Bowers in coverage, they may now be free to throw that extra man into the pass rush at times. Ideally, EDGE Chop Robinson feasts and the Dolphins can rely on their organic pass rush to heat up Kirk Cousins. But if they need an extra body for key rushes, they can do so without feeling like they’re playing with quite so much fire for an explosive play.
Bowers being out is a huge deal. But the timing of us learning this development is just as big.
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