The Good News/Bad News with Jordyn Brooks

Jordyn Brooks sits atop the NFL leaderboard in tackles in the 2025 season, which may be the only highlight so far for the Miami Dolphins defense.

But even then there's an important caveat, and it stems from the fact that not all tackles are created equal.

On the one hand, it's great that Brooks has been active enough to record 66 tackles in the first six games of the season, but is it really that great when a lot of the tackles are coming after sizable gains.

Linebackers coach Joe Barry was presented with that notion that "some folks" are pointing out that a lot of Brooks' tackles in 2025 have come too far downfield and that prompted this reply: "You can ask those people those questions, yeah, whoever those people are. I know Jordyn Brooks is leading the NFL in tackles right now, so our job is to tackle the guy with the ball where he's at. I don't get concerned with that. So whatever stat that you're referring to, you can ask those people wherever the ball is being tackled at."

OK then, forget about "those people," what do the official NFL gamebooks have to say on the matter?'

Funny you should ask because we did the research and came up with some interesting, though not overly positive, findings.

BREAKING DOWN BROOKS' TACKLES

The official NFL stat leaderboard has Brooks with 66 tackles on the season, including 41 unassisted, with a high of 18 total tackles in the Week 4 victory against the New York Jets and a low of four in the Week 3 loss against the Buffalo Bills.

Brooks has been credited with 1.5 sacks, a full sack against the New England Patriots in Week 2 and a sack shared by rookie Kenneth Grant against theCarolina Panthers in Week 5. He also has two tackles for loss, the full sack and a 3-yard tackle of Jonathan Taylor on a third-down run in the opener against the Indianapolis Colts.

He also has three other stops for no gain, one each in Weeks 1, 5 and 6.

That's the good news.

Now comes the bad news.

Of Brooks' 66 tackles, 29 came after gains of 8 or more yards, with another 10 after gains between 5 and 7 yards. That's 39 of 66 tackles coming after gains of at least 5 yards.

The last game against the Los Angeles Chargers was a good example of Brooks making a lot of tackles without necessarily great results.

In that 29-27 loss, Brooks was credited with nine tackles, all of them unassisted. But five of those tackles came after gains of 6, 7 or 8 yards.

The Buffalo game was Brooks' least productive in all aspects.

Worse than the season-low four tackles is the fact they came at end of gains of 7, 30, 11 and 8 yards.

To be clear, this is not an indictment of Brooks in the least, but rather an observation of the poor performance of the defense so far in 2025.

THE DOLPHINS HISTORY OF HIGH TACKLE NUMBERS

At his current pace, Brooks would end the season with 187 tackles, which would represented the third-highest total in franchise history behind Steve Towle's 217 in 1976 and Zach Thomas' 195 in 2002.

And as proof there's no correlation between high tackle numbers and the quality of the defense, the Dolphins finished with the 22nd-ranked defense in 1976 when the team had a 6-8 record and the defense was third in 2002.

Brooks led the Dolphins in tackles as well in 2024, his first season with the team with 143. That was the team's highest total since 2006 when Zach Thomas finished with 165.

Of course, we should point out that certain schemes lend themselves to having linebackers with very high tackle numbers.

But linebackers do typically lead the team, and the last Dolphins at another position to win the tackle title was safety Reshad Jones, who did it in 2017.

BROOKS' GAME-BY-GAME TACKLE CHART

Week 1 at Indianapolis — 14 total tackles, 7 after gains of less than 4 yards, 5 after gains between 4-7 yards, 2 after gains of 8 yards or more

Week 2 vs. New England — 8 total tackles, 5 after gains of less than 4 yards, 0 after gains between 4-7 yards, 3 after gains of 8 yards or more

Week 3 at Buffalo — 4 total tackles, 0 after gains of less than 4 yards, 0 after gains between 4-7 yards, 0 after gains of 8 yards or more

Week 4 vs. N. Y. Jets — 18 total tackles, 1 after gains of less than 4 yards, 5 after gains between 4-7 yards, 12 after gains of 8 yards or more

Week 5 at Carolina — 13 total tackles, 7 after gains of less than 4 yards, 3 after gains between 4-7 yards, 3 after gains of 8 yards or more

Week 6 at Indianapolis — 9 total tackles, 3 after gains of less than 4 yards, 1 after gains between 4-7 yards, 3 after gains of 8 yards or more

Totals through 6 games — 66 total tackles, 23 after gains of less than 4 yards, 14 after gains between 4-7 yards, 29 after gains of 8 yards or more

More Miami Dolphins Coverage: