Emmanuel Ogbah reeled off back-to-back nine-sack seasons to start the 2020s; those showings earned the veteran pass rusher a second Dolphins contract. The first year of Ogbah’s new deal did not go well, and it ended early due to a torn triceps injury.
The former Browns and Chiefs edge defender tallied just one sack in 2022 and suffered the season-ending injury in mid-November, shortly after Miami acquired Bradley Chubb at the trade deadline. Ogbah is aiming to rebound, and he will now have a chance to play alongside Chubb for a full season.
Although the Dolphins are not rushing Ogbah back to full work, the eighth-year sack artist said (via the Miami Herald’s Daniel Oyefusi) he has received full clearance for football activities. The Dolphins are not quite as deep as they were at the point when Ogbah went down when Melvin Ingram was in the fold along with Chubb and 2021 first-rounder Jaelan Phillips. But the Chubb-Phillips-Ogbah-Christian Wilkins pass rush presents promise ahead of Vic Fangio‘s first season running Miami’s defense. While Ingram remains a free agent, ex-Fangio Broncos pupil Malik Reed is also now with the Dolphins.
Fangio ran into bad luck in terms of pass rusher availability during his HC stay in Denver. Chubb missed nearly all of the 2019 season — Fangio’s first as Broncos HC — and much of 2021 due to injury. Von Miller missed all of 2020 and was off the Broncos’ roster, via the deadline deal with the Rams, by the time Chubb returned to action late in the 2021 season. Miller and Chubb finished just three games together in Fangio’s three-season tenure. The Dolphins are paying up — in the neighborhood of $4.5M per year — for Fangio’s bounce-back opportunity and will outfit the well-regarded defensive coach with an interesting D-line contingent.
The Dolphins gave Ogbah a four-year, $65.4M deal in 2022. This provided the former second-round pick a nice raise from his initial Miami terms (two years, $15MM). Coming off a season as Frank Clark‘s bookend for the Super Bowl LIV-winning Chiefs outfit, Ogbah totaled 45 QB hits from 2020-21. The Dolphins reduced Ogbah’s workload in 2022, however, and he will now begin work under another DC.
Had the Dolphins upset the Bills in the wild-card round, Ogbah was readying for a potential return at less than 100% in the playoffs. It did not come to that, but he will attempt to re-establish himself under Fangio this season.
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