Dolphins Select their 2020 Captains
The Miami Dolphins will have eight captains for the 2020 season and, as a sign of the changing look of the roster, five of them are newcomers.
The five newcomers elected captain in a vote of the players are center Ted Karras on offense, linebackers Kyle Van Noy and Elandon Roberts on defense, and Clayton Fejedelem and Kavon Frazier on special teams.
The three returning players selected as captains were quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, offensive lineman Jesse Davis and safety Bobby McCain.
It's interesting to note the Dolphins had only four captains last season, with McCain being one of them. The others were two players no longer on the team, center Daniel Kilgore and special teams standout Walt Aikens, as well as linebacker Jerome Baker.
It's also clear there's a Patriots influence at play here, since three of the captains are newcomers who came over from New England: Karras, Van Noy and Roberts.
In the case of Roberts, he likely won a lot of admirers in training camp because he not only brought a lot of energy in practice, he also looked like the best player on the team from this vantage point.
Fejedelem and Frazier both were signed as unrestricted free agents in large part with the expectation they would be large roles on special teams, so them being elected captains certainly makes sense.
On offense, Fitzpatrick was a logical choice given the way he won over his teammates last year not only with his infectious personality but by his play on the field, which was good enough to earn him team MVP honors.
Finally, there's Davis, who has come an awfully long way since he first joined the team as a practice squad member in 2016. Davis now is the longest-tenured member of the offensive line and he's shown his team-first attitude throughout his Dolphins tenure by lining up at several positions up front.
"It’s funny, you wake up one day and then after free agency and whatever and you’re like, ‘Wow, I am the oldest guy’ or the most experienced, I guess, in the room," Davis said early in training camp. "You kind of have to put yourself in that mind-set of, ‘I’m going to be the leader. I want to be the leader. I want to have my guys. I want to have somebody they can lean on when things are hard or advice with anything.’
"I embrace it. I wasn’t appointed or anything like, ‘Hey Jesse, you’ve got to do this.’ It’s more so that this is what I want to do. I started reading a lot of leadership books, too, to try to figure it out and more importantly — kind of like a Navy SEAL book — they’re all about teamwork and how they can build each other up and they can rely on each other. Those things I kind of did this offseason with all of the time I had on my hands and it kind of just gave me a different perspective on how to lead.”
