In last night’s preseason game, the Dolphins suffered a significant injury in their secondary. Cornerback Trill Williams was carted off the field, and it has been confirmed today that he suffered a torn ACL (Twitter link via PFF’s Doug Kyed). 
The 22-year-old played in one game with the Dolphins last season as a rookie. Given his performance in training camp this year, the former UDFA was expected to be in contention for the fourth CB spot on Miami’s depth chart. Instead, he will now undergo surgery and miss the 2022 campaign in its entirety.
Pro Football Network’s Aaron Wilson tweets that the affected knee is one which has already suffered an ACL tear. As a result, the Syracuse alum’s recovery will be even more heavily scrutinized as he looks to land on an NFL roster again next season. The six-foot-one, 205-pounder had a productive college career with 92 tackles, four interceptions (one of which was returned for a touchdown) and another major on his only punt return.
In Williams’ absence, the Dolphins still have their starting trio at the CB position in Xavien Howard, Nik Needham and Byron Jones (whose regular season availability remains something of a question mark at this point). Depth, however, will now become even more of a sore spot on the roster, and the team is “evaluating outside options,” per Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald (Twitter link).
A number of notable veterans remain on the market at the position, including the likes of Trae Waynes, Joe Haden, Chris Harris and Xavier Rhodes. With nearly $20MM in cap space to work with, the Dolphins could easily afford an addition or two for experienced depth. Their top internal options for the No. 4 spot, meanwhile, are Keion Crossen and Noah Igbinoghene.
Based on their performance so far in camp and last night, neither Keion Crossen nor Noah Igbinoghene are NFL qualify players yet.
The Phins have to grab a couple CBs this week or else they’ll have real depth risk.
It would also be hard to argue that Noah Igbinoghene is anything other than a bust at this point. Maybe he could be effective at safety, but he just doesn’t have the aptitude for CB.
Flores really screwed the pooch on pushing for that pick.
Yes. If anyone should be accused of tanking it’s Flores. Many of the draft picks he (allegedly) pushed hard for have not worked out at all, at least up to this point.
You’re blaming Flores for someone tearing their ACL on a team he has nothing to do with? You sound reasonable.
Not what he said at all. Flores pushed for Noah Igbinoghene who has turned out to be a huge bust for the Dolphins and was most likely going to be replaced by Trill Williams who was having a good camp. Keep hearing Noah is young and developing but it doesn’t help when teams target him and he gets beat on the field.
If you draft someone and then you are unfairly fired before you have a reasonable opportunity to develop them, that’s not on you.