What Miami Dolphins LB Shaq Barrett’s Achilles Journey Can Tell Us About Jaelan Phillips’ 2024

The Miami Dolphins recently signed a pass rusher who tore his Achilles in 2022 to help them survive the rehab period for a pass rusher who tore his Achilles in 2023.

Veteran EDGE defender Shaq Barrett joined the Dolphins last week on a one-year free agent deal.

The move gave Anthony Weaver a proven outside linebacker who knows his job isn’t to replace rehabbing Jaelan Phillips (Achilles) and Bradley Chubb (ACL), but to hold down the fort until they’re back playing like their pre-injury selves.

Miami Dolphins LB Shaq Barrett’s Injury History

Both Phillips and Chubb are at this point question marks for the start of training camp, and perhaps even the start of the regular season.

But as Barrett’s 2022/2023 journey suggests, there’s reason for optimism that Phillips can play — and play pretty well — early in the 2024 season.

While Barrett certainly regressed in 2023 after rupturing his Achilles the previous October, there’s reason to believe that his diminished play is more a reflection of his age (he turns 32 this November) than injury.

Barrett not only made it back in time to play in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 2023 opener, he counterintuitively was the most effective early in the season. He recorded 4 of his 4.5 sacks and 17 of his 19 pressures in the season’s first 10 weeks.

So while Barrett had a steep dropoff in both sacks per game (.3) and pressures per game (1.3) in 2023, it’s far from certain that it was all or mostly due to the significant injury.

“It didn’t really bother me at all,” Barrett said earlier this week. “[Discomfort] was just from being in a boot. Like the top of my foot right here was what was bothering me a lot. So once that went down a little bit, and I started getting treatment on that, it started feeling a lot better.

“But honestly, I thought throughout the whole year, I was like, ‘it feels good, it feels good.’ But it wasn’t until the end of the year when you’ve done football and you’re not doing anything for a week or so, you actually feel like, ‘Oh, it could feel better.’

“So it was still a little sore throughout the whole year, but I thought it was fine because I was feeling that throughout the whole year. But once I took a break, I did feel that it healed up a little bit more and it just felt better.”

Barrett’s message to Phillips?

“Just trust it, though, because after the months of being in that boot and that cast, it’s pretty much healed, so you’ve just got to start loosening it up. So start loosening it up and trusting in it as soon as you can once you get out of that, because it’s going to hold up. You don’t have to worry about it re-tearing, pulling, or anything. So just trust in it. When it’s time to go, just start going and believing that it’s going to hold up.”

Phillips should presumably have an even faster and better rehab due to his far younger age (he doesn’t turn 25 until May) and his otherworldly conditioning. The only thing working against him? He tore his Achilles a month later in the season than Barrett did.

Prior to his injury, Phillips was averaging .8 sacks and 2.1 pressures per game in 2023. If the Dolphins can get anything close to that from Barrett, his contract (one year, maximum of $9 million a year) will look like a steal.

“I still got a lot to prove,” Barrett said. “Especially getting cut from another team. That adds another whole fuel to the fire right there. The Dolphins are going to be happy they signed me. Tampa is going to be mad they let me go because this year that I’m planning on having and the success that we’re about to have as a team is going to be amazing.”