Why Jackson Feels Ready for Critical Season

After the Miami Dolphins wrapped up their first practice of training camp Wednesday, Austin Jackson was among the players brought out for interviews outside the media entrance to the Baptist Health Training Complex.

As often happens in South Florida in the summer, it started pouring while Jackson was talking at an uncovered podium, leading to a quick end to his media session, though Jackson later was brought back to start over under the covered tent set up for training camp.

Doing a media two-a-day is unusual, though not expected for someone like Jackson, who enters every as a strong candidate for the Good Guy Award. And it may have been that Jackson didn't mind talking twice and even repeating the same comments the way he's feeling these days.

The foot injury that cost him 11 games during the 2025 season and most of the offseason program team periods is in the past, with Jackson going as far as saying he feels "as great as ever."

BIG YEAR FOR JACKSON

Jackson is back for a seventh season with the Dolphins, now standing as the second-longest-tenured player on the roster behind only Zach Sieler.

There's also a realistic, maybe as much as probable, likelihood this could be his last.

The Dolphins drafted Kadyn Proctor with the first pick of the Jon-Eric Sullivan/Jeff Hafley era and the assumption all along has been that he'll move to right tackle starting next year after playing at left guard as a rookie.

It also probably wasn't a great sign for Jackson's long-term Miami future that the team asked him to take a pay cut to return this season instead of becoming another in the long line of well-known veterans shown the door.

Jackson didn't have to agree to take a pay cut because he could have forced the Dolphins' hand and dared them to cut him, except he wasn't exactly in a great position to land a good free agent contract after a third season in four years where he failed to play more than half the games.

"I was hurt," Jackson said. "I mean, like, look at the Maxx Crosby thing. He tried to leave. I don't know what happened, but he had a knee (injury), and the Ravens rejected the offer. So, not to say I would have left, but just like my agent and the people in my corner were telling me like you know when you're fighting an injury you can't go into free agency."

Jackson now will head into free agency next year unless he agrees to a contract extension before then, which might be a long shot given his history and the money the Dolphins already will be devoting at the tackle position if they indeed move Proctor to that spot.

What kind of market there will be for Jackson largely will depend on his ability to play most of the games this season, if not all of them.

Like it or not, Jackson carries the label of injury-prone.

It's a label he obviously would love to see disappear, even though there's only so much any player can do to protect himself from injury.

“It's kind of a luck thing and also just putting my best foot forward every time," Jackson said during the first of his two media sessions Wednesday. "You know when I came back last year, I remember there were a couple times where I'm blocking someone into the pile, into the ground or whatever and I see the pile coming, I'm literally moving out the way already just because I know how it can get. I take care of my body. I eat right, sleep a lot, so it's just trying to stay as active as possible while I'm on the field.”

JACKSON'S TOUGH LUCK

The injury Jackson sustained in training camp last summer was a perfect example of simple bad luck hitting a player.

He was injured when a teammate stepped on his foot near the end of a practice, and the injury was serious enough that season-ending surgery was suggested as an option for him.

“I was trying to be out there as much as possible," he said. "I had an option in training camp if I wanted to shut my season down or keep going. Trainers were open to either option. So I decided that I wanted to be on the field as much as possible, be healthy as much as possible, and I did rush back. And I'm just thankful now that I got a full offseason to recover, and God willing, leave that in the past."

To get him prepared for the start of camp and be ready to go full blast, Jackson was kept out of basically every team period in the spring.

“I definitely think it helped," Jackson said. "Shout-out to the training staff. I feel great right now. You know, I've been training for the last couple weeks. I feel fine. I feel great. Better than I've ever felt.”

And he's looking forward to using training camp to get himself ready for the start of the regular season, as opposed to last season when he missed most of the summer and then aggravated that foot injury in that opener.

"It would mean everything for me," Jackson said. "About last year, I was a little bummed out I didn't get all of training camp to kind of prepare for the season, and I just went into the ‘be as available as possible’ mode. But going through a full training camp and into the season, I think that that's exactly what I need every year. It just primes me for what I need to do during the season."

Add us as a preferred source on Google