After suffering the second major injury of his professional career and missing the final eight games of the 2024 season, Dolphins right tackle Austin Jackson has been working his way back to the field in training camp in hopes of being ready for a Week 1 trip to Indianapolis. Jackson’s comeback hit a snag today, though, as Cameron Wolfe of NFL Network reports that the 25-year-old suffered a “lower extremity injury” that will cause him to miss “weeks” in camp. 
Jackson may have been ahead of schedule in his journey back to the field, then. His targeted Week 1 return date was set back in June, and though today’s injury will seemingly set him back, the team still expresses hope that he’ll be back on the field in the season opener.
Jackson, the No. 8 overall pick out of USC In 2020, started immediately upon arriving in Miami as a left tackle. After being kicked inside to left guard in Year 2 and missing all but two games in Year 3, several question marks surrounded Jackson’s future. Returning in 2023 to start as a rare blindside blocking right tackle (for a left-handed quarterback), Jackson did enough to earn a three-year, $36MM extension.
Last year, the Dolphins had Kendall Lamm and Patrick Paul backing up Jackson and Terron Armstead. Armstead wasn’t re-signed to a new deal, and Lamm is now in Philly, so the depth that secured the team last year is not quite the same. Larry Borom stands as the most-experienced backup of a group that includes Ryan Hayes, Kion Smith, Braeden Daniels, Daniel Brunskill, and Bayron Matos, an International Player Pathway Program addition who was airlifted from practice to a hospital a week and a half ago but has since returned to the building.
If Jackson can reach his target return date, the Dolphins should be fine when the season opens, but they’ll now be requiring much more of some backups throughout training camp and the preseason. It will be an opportunity to get a relatively inexperienced group a good portion of quality snaps in Jackson’s absence.