MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Friday is a homecoming of sorts for Miami Dolphins wide receiver Braxton Berrios. Before signing with the team this offseason, Berrios spent four seasons with the New York Jets — the last of which he spent battling against star cornerback Sauce Gardner daily in practice.
Assuming the hamstring injury that kept him out of the Raiders game has sufficiently healed, Friday will be Berrios’ first game back at MetLife Stadium since making his intra-divisional move.
And he’ll go up against the young cornerback he helped make better last fall.
Miami Dolphins’ Braxton Berrios on Facing Sauce Gardner
Here was Berrios’ scouting report of Gardner, the 2022 Defensive Rookie of the Year:
“He’s long. He’s very rangy. A lot similar to [Jalen Ramsey]. He’s a smart football player. He makes the plays when he’s there, and he doesn’t mess up too often. He’s extremely sound, and it should be fun.”
Gardner has had a solid sophomore season, limiting opposing quarterbacks to completions on 65.8% of their passes and 7.2 yards per target. But he hasn’t yet made the game-changing plays that distinguished his rookie year.
The Dolphins don’t want that to change this week.
“It’s going to be very familiar,” Berrios said. “Obviously, the sideline won’t be, but very familiar just being in MetLife again.”
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He continued: “I was there for four years. You keep a relationship with a lot of those guys, so I’m still close with a lot of them. Seeing them all pregame is going to be fun.”
One of those friends: Zach Wilson, the former No. 2 pick who was benched this week for third-stringer Tim Boyle.
“Obviously, I know him personally, and I’ve been keeping up with him through the year, and it’s tough,” Berrios said. “It’s the game of football, the ebbs and flows of it, and all that is obviously handled in-house there, but I still talk to him and stuff. We still have a personal relationship.”
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