The Miami Dolphins’ practice squad has seen a modest amount of action to this point in the season — with the league’s new policies allowing NFL teams to call players up from the practice squad on game days, the Dolphins have gotten contributions from CB Tae Hayes, WR Kirk Merritt and IDL Benito Jones at different stretches of the season thanks to practice squad promotions.
And with the new flexibility that the practice squad is afforded, NFL teams are now also able to designate practice squad players as “protected”, meaning they can’t be poached from opposing teams to be added to the active roster. And Miami has nailed down four members of their current practice squad this week to ensure that exact scenario doesn’t happen.
Miami Dolphins' Week 10 practice squad protections:
Antonio Callaway
Tae Hayes
Chris Myarick
Reid Sinnett— Adam Beasley (@AdamHBeasley) November 10, 2020
The addition of Antonio Callaway to the team’s wide receiver corp has some buzzing about the possibilities; he’s a speedster who was once upon a time a highly coveted prospect out of the University of Florida. But off the field issues have contributed to an unproductive career thus far, although Miami has the intersection of need, opportunity and culture to roll the dice — and hence he’s on the practice squad. One would expect if Preston Williams is unable to play after a foot sprain last weekend, Callaway may get the call up.
Meanwhile, Tae Hayes is the most experienced of the rest of the group. Miami has protected TE Chris Myarick several times this season, so it seems as though there’s something there that the team likes. Lastly, third string QB Reid Sinnett is a developmental player and with his acquired feel for Miami’s system, it makes sense that the Dolphins would want to protect themselves from a potential quarterback disaster if both Tua Tagovailoa and Ryan Fitzpatrick were unavailable for a game.
Don’t expect much in the way of contributions from these four this week — but we can at least expect them to still be with Miami next Monday thanks to the team’s protection designation.