After spending three weeks on the Dolphins’ active/PUP list to start training camp, Preston Williams and Elandon Roberts are practicing with the team again. The Dolphins activated the third-year wide receiver and sixth-year linebacker Thursday.
Both players return to position groups that have seen big changes this offseason. After going through the 2020 season thin at wide receiver, the Dolphins added Will Fuller and Jaylen Waddle. And Albert Wilson has impressed his first training camp post-opt-out. Miami also traded Shaq Lawson for longtime Texans inside linebacker Benardrick McKinney.
The Dolphins used Roberts as an 11-game starter last season, though the former Patriot’s initial Miami slate proved a bit rocky. Pro Football Focus graded Roberts as its worst full-time linebacker in 2020, but his coverage issues largely contributed to this assessment. The Dolphins re-signed the run-stuffing ‘backer in March, doing so after trading for McKinney. Roberts suffered a late-season knee injury that ended up requiring surgery that put his Week 1 status in doubt. He might now be trending upward for Miami’s opener.
Williams has run into multiple bad injury breaks. An ACL tear halted the former UDFA’s promising rookie season, and the Colorado State product’s 2020 campaign also stopped at the eight-game mark. Williams has spent the past several months rehabbing a Lisfranc issue, one that placed his Week 1 status in doubt as well. The 6-foot-5 wideout has produced in limited time, hauling in 50 receptions for 716 yards and seven touchdowns in 16 career games, but the Dolphins’ offseason additions at receiver will affect his role.
Both players can no longer be stashed on the Dolphins’ reserve/PUP list to start the season, but each can be placed on IR — so long as they are carried over to the team’s regular-season roster following the preseason — if the team deems them not ready by Week 1. The NFL kept its 2020 IR rules, which allow teams to activate players from IR after three weeks.
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