Dolphins Monday Notebook: Chubb to Pro Bowl, Perfect Doc, and More
The Miami Dolphins will have a fourth representative at the Pro Bowl Games.
Outside linebacker Bradley Chubb was added to the AFC team Monday as a replacement for Chargers edge defender Khalil Mack.
Chubb was a second alternate when the teams were announced last month.
Chubb will join teammates Tyreek Hill, Terron Armstead and Xavien Howard at the newly designed Pro Bowl Games, where a flag football game and skills competitions have replaced the traditional game.
This will mark the Dolphins' highest Pro Bowl representation since 2016 when they also had four participants — RB Jay Ajayi, WR Jarvis Landry, DT Ndamukong Suh and DE Cameron Wake.
Chubb, who the Dolphins acquired at the trade deadline from the Denver Broncos, ended the 2022 season with eight sacks and three forced fumbles. He had 2.5 sacks in eight games with Miami.
DOLPHINS' SUPER 2023 OPPONENTS
The outcome of the AFC and NFC title games Sunday meant the Miami Dolphins will be facing both Super Bowl LVII participants during the 2023 regular season.
While the schedule won't come out until late April or (more likely) May, the Dolphins already know their 2023 opponents and those will include the AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs and the NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles.
And if those matchups weren't going to be difficult enough already, even with the lineup changes before next September, it should be noted both will be road games for Miami.
It will mark the 10th time the Dolphins will face both Super Bowl participants from the previous season and the fifth time they'll face both teams on the road — though three of the first four times involved an AFC East opponent.
The Dolphins most recently faced the two reigning conference champions in 2020 when they played the 49ers in San Francisco and the Chiefs in Miami. It also happened in the 1980 regular season (at Pittsburgh, at L.A. Rams), in 1981 (vs. Oakland, vs. Philadelphia), 1984 (at Washington, vs. L.A. Raiders), 1993 (at Dallas, home-and-away vs. Buffalo), 1995 (at San Diego, vs. San Francisco), 1996 (vs. Dallas, vs. Pittsburgh), 1997 (at Green Bay, home-and-away vs. New England), and 2017 (at Atlanta, home-and-aways vs. New England).
PERFECT DOLPHINS DOCUMENTARY
Kansas City or Philadelphia will become the Super Bowl champion in two Sundays, but neither will match the feat of the 1972 Miami Dolphins, whose perfect season remains unmatched.
And that perfect season will be celebrated again this weekend when ESPN unveils its E60 documentary "The Perfect Machine."
The documentary on the 50th anniversary of the perfect Dolphins includes new interviews with 16 surviving members of the team as well as archival sound from deceased players and Hall of Fame coach Don Shula. Also interviewed are opponents, including Joe Namath, and media members who covered the team.
The documentary will debut Sunday, Feb. 5 at noon on ABC, will re-air on ESPN2 at 11 p.m. and be available for streaming (after first airing) on ESPN+.
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FORMER DOLPHINS NEWS
Wide receiver Lynn Bowden Jr., who showed promise for the Dolphins as a rookie in 2020, will get another to restart his NFL career with the New England Patriots.
The Patriots announced Monday they had signed Bowden to a future contract for the 2023 season. He spent the 2022 season on New England's practice squad and was elevated for one regular season, though he didn't touch the ball in his 14 snaps against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 9.
Acquired from the Raiders in a trade in the summer of 2020, Bowden played 10 games with four starts for Miami as a rookie and had 28 catches before spending all of 2021 on IR.
-- On the topic of future contracts, we should mention that WR Preston Williams was signed to one of those by the Carolina Panthers after spending the entire 2022 season on their practice squad (though he never was elevated for a regular season game).
-- The practice squad contracts of players on teams eliminated in the divisional round of the playoff expired Monday, which meant those players not signed to future contracts became free agents.
Among those players from Buffalo, Jacksonville, Dallas and the New York Giants were former Dolphins RB Duke Johnson, former Dolphins DE Taco Charlton and veteran cornerback Mackensie Alexander, who joined the Cowboys practice squad after the Dolphins signed him in training camp but shortly after placed him on injured reserve.
ON THIS DAY ...
-- In 1983, the Dolphins dropped a 27-17 decision against Washington in Super Bowl XVII. The Dolphins got a kickoff return for a touchdown from Fulton Walker and a 76-yard touchdown pass from David Woodley to Jimmy Cefalo, but little else and they couldn't overcome John Riggins.
-- Happy 41st birthday to former Dolphins edge defender Cameron Wake, arguably the team's best player in the 2010s. Wake last played in the NFL in 2019 with the Tennessee Titans, and while he's never announced his retirement, his player bio on NFL.com shows up in the "retired" section. We advocated in a story last offseason the idea of the Dolphins signing Wake to a one-day contract so he could retire as a member of the organization, though we've heard nothing regarding that possibility.
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Alain Poupart has covered the Miami Dolphins on a full-time basis since 1989. You can follow him on Twitter at @PoupartNFL. Feel free to submit questions every week for the All Dolphins mailbag.
