Dolphins Postgame Notes: 'Brotherly Disagreement,' Injury Updates, and More

Jordyn Brooks and Tyrel Dodson downplayed their practice skirmish

Miami Dolphins running back Ollie Gordon II (31) celebrates his touchdown against the Chicago Bears during the second half at Soldier Field on Sunday. | David Banks-Imagn Images

All is good in the Miami Dolphins linebacker room.

Jordyn Brooks and Tyrel Dodson made sure that was crystal clear after the 24-24 preseason tie against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field on Sunday.

Brothers being brothers is all it was.

And they clearly were in sync on the field Sunday, celebrating together when Dotson was involved on the first third-down stop of the game.

“Tyrel Dotson is capable of doing any and everything, know what I mean?” Brooks said. “That was part of what the scuffle was about, knowing his abilities to do everything out there on the football field.”

Brooks and Dotson scuffled after a third-down stop in a team period Friday, with Brooks taking a swing and former Dolphins tackle Terron Armstead saying on his podcast that Brooks was upset because Dotson just “thudded” the Bears running back to end the play rather than hit him to match the physicality the Chicago defense was displaying against the Miami offense on the other field.

“It's just a brother disagreement,” Dodson said. “If anyone has siblings or anything like that, one sibling gets hot, another sibling gets hot, you just got to deal with it how you deal with it.”

A fight between brother is exactly how head coach Mike McDaniel characterized the episode after the game Sunday.

But he did make it clear he didn’t like what happened.

“My take was that I was calling plays on the other field and when (Anthony Weaver)  came and told me, I figured I would hear from them pretty quickly and overall, yeah, I'm not pumped about the front part of it, but I also knew that the people that were engaged in it, they came up to me and explained what happened. And the biggest thing is they took the time to apologize to the team. And things happen in life and in football, but when you have people that on their own accord wanna talk to the team and explain what happened. And it brings your team closer because I think they understand that there's something bigger at play than just their names when you're fighting in a joint practice. And I think they're like brothers. It was very much like a brotherly fight. They knew it wasn't to our standard and what we're about. And so they were accountable with their teammates and I think to the team. So overall, I think it was something that families go through and I think we're stronger because of it but that's only because of the type of men that and and the accountability that T-Dodson and JB really showed.”

Dodson said the Dolphins really want to be physical on defense, but made the distinction as to what happened Friday because of what the practice rules were supposed to look like.

“I mean it's practice,” he said. “It's a thud tempo, so we can't worry about what others do. We have our own discipline and stuff like that. So we can only have our standard, which is our standard. If it's thud, it's thud. It's no tackling. So that's what it is.”

INJURY UPDATES

McDaniel said running back Alexander Mattison, who was injured in the fourth quarter when he landed on his head following a 21-yard reception, was dealing with neck and shoulder soreness and the team would know more about his status in the next couple of days.

Safety Elijah Campbell, meanwhile, appears to have avoided a major injury. He left the game midway through the second quarter after a Chicago running plays. Trainers examined his right knee before he got up and walked to the sideline.

After spending some time in the medical blue tent, Campbell spent the rest of the game on the sideline.

“I think I would say that as of right now we aren't worried that it's serious, but we need more information to know exactly what that is,” Campbell said. “But right now we're not concerned for anything severe.”

FASHION STATEMENT

There was an interesting sight on the Dolphins sideline in the second half, with every player wearing their jersey — including those who didn’t play.

It’s commonplace for players who are being kept out of preseason games to wear regular shirts, and that’s exactly what we saw in the first half.

It changed in the second half when Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, Jaelan Phillips, Darren Waller, Cam Smith and everybody else who didn’t participate wore his game jersey.

McDaniel was asked about it after the game and you can draw your own conclusions about his response: “Once you go in for halftime and the starters take their pads off, when they came out, I was like, I really like the white jerseys, so I wanted to see more of the white jerseys,” McDaniel said. “So I was like, hey, why don't we all put our jerseys on?”