MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Along with the usual luggage and pets, a flight from Atlanta to South Florida on Tuesday transported 168.5 combined NFL stats.
Bruce Irvin and Justin Houston are the Miami Dolphins‘ break-glass-in-case-of-emergency plan at outside linebacker with Jaelan Phillips, Bradley Chubb, and — most recently — Andrew Van Ginkel out for the season.
They both were in Atlanta when they got the call from Dolphins GM Chris Grier, and took a 40,000-foot carpool to their new workplace.
Miami Dolphins’ Plan for Bruce Irvin
The onboarding process better be quick. Both will be expected to have big roles when the Dolphins visit the Kansas Chiefs in the Wild Card round on Saturday.
There are two reasons to wonder how effective they’ll be. One is their age. Irvin turned 36 in November. Houston turns 35 a week from Sunday.
“I told J-Houston that yesterday — we’re gonna have the oldest outside linebacker room in the league,” Irvin said.
Oldest, yes. And most accomplished. When Irwin arrived at team HQ Wednesday, he was amused to find that outside linebackers coach Ryan Slowik had written “243” on the white board.
That’s the combined number of career sacks for Emmanuel Ogbah, Melvin Ingram, and the two new additions.
But even if Houston and Irvin were a decade younger, it’s a tough ask for any player to absorb a brand-new scheme and then perform his duties at a high level — all within the span of a couple of days.
Fortunately for Irvin, he has a leg up.
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He played in 2022 for Seahawks defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt, who was one of current Dolphins DC Vic Fangio’s top lieutenants a few years back in Chicago.
“It’s a lot of crossover” in defensive systems,” Irvin said. “When I started going over the plays with coach this morning and it just felt like it was the same. Same playbook, which is gonna help a lot being it’s a short week. I just got here probably 24 hours ago. That carryover is gonna help me a lot, you know, and hopefully it transitions over to Sunday.”
Do you feel ready to play?
“Is water wet? I was just playing, you know. It’s not like I was at home for a month or two. You know, I was just playing last week, so I’m definitely ready to play.”
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