Barrett's Achilles Advice for Phillips
Shaq Barrett understands his role with the Miami Dolphins at first will consist of leading the pass rush while edge defenders Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips recover from their 2023 season-ending injuries.
In Phillips' case, the injury was an Achilles tear, the same injury that sidelined Barrett for the second half of the 2022 season while he was a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
So Barrett should know a little something about what Phillips will be going through and he's also in a position to offer some advice.
"For the first maybe like three months or two months you're in a boot and you've got like a little arch in your heel," Barrett explained during a Zoom media session Monday after his signing with the Dolphins became official. "You got to do all that. Then once you're done with all that and you're out of the boot, just start warming it up, loosen it up, you're going to start walking around on it a little bit.
"Just trust it, though, because after the months you have been in that boot and that cast, it's pretty much healed, so you've got to start loosening it up. So start loosening it up and trusting in it as soon as you can, like once you get out of it, because it's going to hold up. You don't have to worry about every tear or pull or anything So just trust it and when it's time to go, just start going and believing that it's gonna hold up."
After missing the final nine games of the 2022 season, Barrett came back and started all but one game in 2023 for the Bucs before he was released in a salary-cap move early in the offseason.
Barrett, who led the NFL with 19.5 sacks in 2019, finished last season with 4.5 sacks, his lowest total of any season where he started at least 10 games.
But he said the Achilles was not an overriding issue for him during the season, though he did notice it.
"It was still a little sore throughout the whole year, but I thought it was fine because I was feeling that throughout the whole year," Barrett siad. "But once I took a break, I did feel that I heeled up a little bit more and it like just felt better."
PHILLIPS' SITUATION
Phillips was injured in the Black Friday victory against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium, and made an appearance at the Dolphins Challenge Cancer event last month proudly pointing out that he was moving around without a boot or a scooter.
Phillips, however, said he knew nothing about timelines.
As a point of reference, Cameron Wake sustained an Achilles tear Oct. 29, 2015 and was in the lineup for the 2016 season opener, though it wasn't until Week 6 that he played more than half the defensive snaps.
On the other side, Chubb is recovering from a torn ACL, which he sustained in the Week 17 loss at Baltimore.
Barrett has some connection with Chubb as well, this one more direct.
Before he played for Tampa Bay, Barrett spent four seasons with the Denver Broncos and his final one came in 2018 when Chubb arrived as the sixth overall pick in the draft.
"Coming out (of college), I thought I should have been a first-round pick," said Barrett, who went undrafted in 2015. "But like after coming out and seeing the guy who's a first-round pick and the moves that they got and just like the maturity that they got coming out of college, Chubb, I was like, oh, I'm looking again like I might not have been a first-round pick if this is what a first-round pick looks like coming out and plays like coming out.
"And I knew Chubb was going to be the man and we all did honestly. And it was just nice to be able to see that he's doing everything that we thought he could do and more."
