The Miami Dolphins‘ defensive line could morph into one of the league’s better units if the franchise’s 2025 first-round draft pick comes through.
Miami selected Michigan defensive tackle Kenneth Grant with its first selection in the 2025 NFL draft at No. 13 overall. Grant arrives in South Beach after garnering third-team All-American honors with the Wolverines during the 2024 college football season.
The 6-foot-3, 331-pound defensive tackle registered 32 tackles, 6.5 tackles for loss, five pass breakups and three sacks last season. During Michigan’s march to the 2023 national championship, Grant started five games and notched 29 tackles, six pass breakups, five tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks and one interception.
But, it’s not the addition of Grant that has Pro Football Focus excited. At least not yet.
In its 2025 NFL defensive line rankings, Miami earned the nod as the league’s 11th-best defensive line.
A healthy edge unit could push Miami into the top five, although the unit is also capable of dropping into the 20s. Even though Jaelan Phillips ranked sixth among edge defenders in 2022 with an 88.8 PFF overall grade, he has logged only 500 snaps over the past two seasons. Bradley Chubb missed the entire 2024 campaign. If healthy, that pair and 2024 first-round pick Chop Robinson could spearhead one of the league’s most fearsome edge defender rooms.
On the interior, Zach Sieler remains underrated. He is coming off a 78.6 PFF overall grade in 2024, which ranked 11th among 118 interior defenders. – Zoltán Buday, Pro Football Focus
Phillips and Chubb have battled the injury bug of late. An Achilles tear limited Phillips to just eight games in 2023. Then, a partially torn ACL in Week 4 of last year cost Phillips a second consecutive season.
Meanwhile, Chubb tore the ACL, meniscus and patellar tendon in his right knee in the penultimate week of the 2023 season. That sidelined Chubb for all of last year.
With those two recuperating, it gave 2024 first-round pick Chop Robinson a chance to fully showcase his talents during his rookie campaign. Robinson saw 565 defensive snaps. Beginning with Week 9 at Buffalo, Robinson tallied six sacks and 13 quarterback hits.
If Grant helps bolster the Dolphins’ interior alongside Sieler and Miami gets a run of good health, the Dolphins could rocket up these rankings during 2025.
The top five defensive lines entering 2025 according to PFF are Pittsburgh at No. 1, Philadelphia at No. 2, the New York Giants at No. 3, Houston at No. 4 and Buffalo at No. 5.
This article originally appeared on Dolphins Wire: PFF anticipates ‘fearsome’ Dolphins EDGE room in 2025 NFL DL rankings