The Miami Dolphins will be without Aaron Brewer for a while after the team’s starting center suffered a hand injury in a training camp practice last week.
Miami allowed linemen Robert Hunt and Connor Williams to leave in free agency during the offseason and can’t exactly afford to lose players up front. But Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel sees a silver lining — at least it happened now.
“I look at it like this – most of the time you’re not fortunate enough to have no health-related issues on the offensive line for a whole season,” McDaniel said Friday night after the Dolphins’ first preseason game. “So it’s better to have this scenario now than for the first time in Week 10. You’d prefer not to have it at all, but that’s not always reality.”
Brewer, who McDaniel described as “week to week” with his injury, will likely be replaced in the lineup for the time being by Liam Eichenberg, a versatile veteran who was competing for a starting spot at guard.
Earlier in camp, the Dolphins offense was bogged down by snapping issues. The temporary loss of Brewer could exacerbate those problems by limiting his reps with Tua Tagovailoa ahead of the regular season. But as McDaniel said, it may also allow the Dolphins to prepare a contingency plan for the possibility of offensive line shuffling in the near future.
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