In the aftermath of Dolphins LB Vince Biegel’s Achilles tear, the team has made things official — adding Biegel to injured reserve. With such a significant injury, Biegel is not expected to return this season and will be forced to shift his personal focus on the field to the 2021 season. A silver lining? He will have a fighting chance to be returned to 100% by then, as he’ll have more than a year of rehab ahead of him before the Dolphins take the field in 2021.
The Dolphins have endured just the significant injury to Biegel thus far this week — but the team also did lose another defender for the short-term in LB Sam Eguavoen. Eguavoen was absent from Wednesday’s team practice and yesterday afternoon it was announced that he was added to the team’s COVID-19/reserve list, joining cornerback Xavien Howard as the only two Dolphins on the list.
Interestingly enough, Eguavoen is the first NFL player to be added to the list this week and the Dolphins currently own two of the 9 NFL players overall who are represented on the list. Florida has been one of the hotspots for the coronavirus over the past two months, but new cases are trending downwards and could potentially see Miami-Dade county in a much better place in just a few weeks when the season is scheduled to kick off.
The Dolphins should expect to see Howard and Eguavoen return from the COVID/reserve list by then, but avoiding new additions will be the challenge with the start of the NFL season just a few weeks away.