Help Coming for Defensive Line?

The news that the Miami Dolphins worked out former Philadelphia Eagles (and Florida State) defensive lineman Marvin Wilson and two others Saturday morning should not have come as a surprise — given the team's current roster or, just as importantly Vic Fangio's comments Friday.

The other two players who worked out for the Dolphins on Saturday were defensive linemen Da'Shawn Hand and Roderick Perry.

The Dolphins have a lot of talent among their interior defensive line with Christian Wilkins, Zach Sieler and Raekwon Davis, but they have nothing behind them in terms of established NFL players. It's a situation that figures to change — it's almost a given — between now and the start of the regular season against the Los Angeles Chargers on Sept. 10.

The four interior defensive linemen on the roster behind the top three are Josiah Bronson, Jaylen Twyman, Anthony Montalvo and Brandon Pili. The last two are rookie free agents, Twyman is a first-year player with no NFL regular season experience, and Bronson has appeared in eight games over the past two seasons, including one for the Dolphins last season when he played five snaps on defense.

This is what Fangio said about the defensive line when he spoke to the media before practice Friday: “Yeah, we’re happy with the Zach, Christian and Raekwon. We need to find two other guys, three other guys, to surface as the fourth, fifth, and sixth defensive linemen, and so far nobody has done that. So that’s an area of that we need to get better at.”

MARVIN WILSON, DA'SHAWN HAND AND RODERICK PERRY

The most noteworthy of the three D-linemen who worked out was former Lions fourth-round pick Da'Shawn Hand.

Hand has 31 games of NFL experience, all but two of them with the Lions, including eight starts in his rookie season of 2018.

Hand spent the 2022 season with the Tennessee Titans, who first signed him to their practice squad the previous season.

The former Alabama player always has shown intriguing potential, but he just hasn't been able to stay healthy. He ended up on IR with a knee injury in 2018, an ankle injury in 2019, a groin injury in 2020 and 2021, and a quad injury in 2022.

He couldn't find a new team after becoming an unrestricted free agent in March.

The truth is Wilson isn't much more proven at the NFL level than any of the current backups, with only two regular season games in two years on his resume.

Word out of Philadelphia is that Wilson looked the part while he was with the Eagles but just got buried on a team with as much depth along the defensive line as any if the NFL.

Wilson had a good career at Florida State after arriving as a five-star recruit, though his play dipped a bit in his senior year. Listed at 6-5, 305, Wilson's size and skill set would make him more of a backup for Wilkins and Sieler in a 3-4 defensive end role as opposed to a backup for Davis.

Perry played two games for the Cleveland Browns as a rookie free agent out of South Carolina State in 2022 while bouncing on and off the practice squad.

He was waived by the Browns in May and spent the first week of camp with the Seattle Seahawks before being waived again.

THE DOLPHINS' TRANSACTION SATURDAY

The Dolphins reached an injury settlement with rookie free agent safety Bennett Williams, who had been waived/injured. this week.

Williams is now free to sign with any other NFL team.

Fullback John Lovett, meanwhile, reverted to injured reserve after being waived/injured Friday.