Dolphins 2025 Week 5 Snap Count Observations

What stood out regarding play counts in the Miami Dolphins' 27-24 loss against the Carolina Panthers on Sunday:

We'll start with the list of inactives, where the biggest news involved second-year running back Jaylen Wright being among those sidelined. It's been a rough start for Wright, who missed the first two games because of a training camp knee injury and then was active but didn't play the past two weeks. Also inactive were DT Zeek Biggers, injured CB Storm Duck, injured WR Cedrick Wilson Jr., and Quinn Ewers serving as the emergency third quarterback.

Every player who was active played in the game except for backup quarterback Zach Wilson.

Six players saw action only on special teams: Cameron Goode, Ethan Bonner, JuJu Brents, Daniel Brunskill, Kendall Lamm and Kion Smith.

DOLPHINS OFFENSE OBSERVATIONS

When a team rushes for over 200 yards, it generally will have more offensive plays and that was the case in this game, with Carolina having 70 to the Dolphins' 55.

Jaylen Waddle and De'Von Achane figured to be key players in the first game without Tyreek Hill, so it shouldn't be a surprise that they ended being on the field for more than 87 percent of the snaps (89 percent for Waddle, 87 for Achane). For those wondering about Achane's work load, he played more snaps (53) with a higher percentage (93) in the Week 2 loss against the New England Patriots.

After his two-touchdown performance in his Dolphins debut, Darren Waller double his number of offensive snaps to 32 against Carolina (though he didn't have a target in the second half). Waller actually wound up with the most snaps of any tight end, with Julian Hill getting 29 though he did get the start.

This probably will come as a surprise, but it wasn't Malik Washington who got the second-most snaps at wide receiver behind Waddle, but rather Nick Westbrook-Ikhine. Washington played 32 snaps, while NWI played 39 in a game where he wasn't targeted once.

Dee Eskridge and Tahj Washington basically were afterthoughts on offense, combining for only five snaps.

Rookie running back Ollie Gordon II maintained his usual snap count, with 14 against Carolina and getting 15 each of the previous two games. It's pretty clear there's not much of a rotation at running back and Gordon is just there to give Achane an occasional breather.

DOLPHINS DEFENSE OBSERVATIONS

Only player was on the field for all of the Dolphins' 70 defensive snaps, that being safety Minkah Fitzpatrick.

Jack Jones, Jordyn Brooks and Rasul Douglas all were on the field for every play except for one.

After opening with four pure defensive linemen against the New York Jets, the Dolphins opened with three off-the-ball linebackers against Carolina in a 4-3 or 2-5 look (depending on how you want to classify Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips). That look had Willie Gay Jr. in the starting lineup, but he ended playing only three snaps on defense the whole game.

After defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver was asked about the disparity in snaps between Chubb and Phillips and Chop Robinson and Matthew Judon last week, and Weaver answering that the reason partly was acting outside linebackers coach Sean Ryan needing to get a feel for his rotation, it was more of the same against Carolina. In this one, Phillips and Chubb had 53 and 52 snaps, compared to 21 for Robinson and 20 for Judon.

Along the defensive line, the snaps were split pretty evenly behind Zach Sieler, who was on the field for 80 percent of the plays. After that, it was Kenneth Grant with 30 snaps, Matthew Butler with 29, Jordan Phillips with 23 and Benito Jones with 20.

With Tyrel Dodson leaving the game because of a head injury, K.J. Britt got 22 snaps on defense after playing one snap in the first four games.

Cornell Armstrong was limited to 23 snaps as the nickel corner because of a hamstring injury, which gave Ifeatu Melifonwu more playing time (25 snaps).

We close with special teams, where Elijah Campbell led the way with 25 snaps, followed by 21 for Britt and Goode. Tanner Conner led the way among offensive players with 18 special teams snaps, followed by 15 for Julian Hill. And because it's now a topic of conversation, Zach Sieler and Minkah Fitzpatrick each played 11 snaps in the kicking game.

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