Breaking Down the Week 17 Dolphins Inactive Info: Bad News for Brewer

Going over the inactives for the Miami Dolphins and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Hard Rock Stadium

Miami Dolphins center Aaron Brewer (55) looks on after the first half against the Tennessee Titans at Hard Rock Stadium. | Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

Aaron Brewer's streak is over.

The Miami Dolphins center will be inactive for the team's Week 17 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Hard Rock Stadium because of the neck injury that had him listed as questionable on the final injury report of the week.

This will be the first game that Brewer will miss since the 2021 season when he was a member of the Tennessee Titans, ending his streak of 75 consecutive games and 66 consecutive starts.

Brewer was among the five Dolphins inactives, along with safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, wide receiver Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, tackle Kendall Lamm and linebacker Derrick McLendon.

The move with McLendon is a bit surprising considering the Dolphins elevated him from the practice squad Saturday.

The other who was elevated was offensive lineman Josh Priebe, and he wound up taking the place of Lamm on the game-day roster as Kion Smith had done before.

With Brewer out, the best guess is that Andrew Meyer will start at center in his first game of the season afer he was activated off in

The issue with Westbrook-Ikhine remains the same as it was last week when he was made inactive for the game against the Cincinnati Bengals, and it involves trying to make sure he doesn't become a compensatory free agent based on his snap count.

Only a certain number of free agents qualify as compensatory free agents and NWI is teetering on the line of qualification, so the Dolphins may want to make sure he doesn't qualify because if he did, it would hurt their ratio of free agents pickups and losses, with teams needing a net loss of compensatory free agents to be eligible for a draft pick.

If the Dolphins keep out NWI the rest of the way, he likely will end up not reaching the snap percentage to make him a compensatory free agent and could produce a net loss for the Dolphins, which would result in a 2026 fourth-round pick for the loss of Jevon Holland.

Compensatory picks don't become official until March, but this would be the logic behind not playing Westbrook-Ikhine, who hasn't been much of a factor regardless for Miami.

For a second consecutive game, Tua Tagovailoa will serve as the emergency third quarterback.

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS INACTIVE INFO

The Buccaneers inactive list is headlined by Pro Bowl left tackle Tristan Wirfs because of the toe injury he sustained in Tampa Bay's loss against the Carolina Panthers last week.

Wirfs had been ruled out Friday.

The other Bucs inactives are QB Connor Bazelak, LB John Bullock, OLB Anthony Nelson, WR Sterling Shepard and S Rashad Wisdom.