MIAMI GARDENS — A number of emotions were running through Jaelan Phillips when he went down with a torn Achilles on the MetLife Stadium turf on Nov. 24.
Would you have guessed one of them was to be grateful?
Phillips, returning to practice Monday with the Miami Dolphins for the first time in nearly nine months since the major injury, revealed an interesting reason why he was actually thankful and appreciative it happened.
“I know it’s going to make me a monster,” the standout edge defender said Monday after practice, in which he went through individual drills and even was out on the field in a team setting for walkthrough portions.
“It’s been a hell of a journey, just having to test my patience.”
Phillips, officially activated off the physically-unable-to-perform list Monday, chronicled his time since that Black Friday game against the New York Jets. He couldn’t walk for the first three or four months. Then, he had to first run on a treadmill. Then, work his way to running on the ground. It felt good at first, but then came the soreness from the reacclimation that had him cut back.
“It’s just been an up-and-down process, like most things in life,” Phillips said.
But Monday was certainly one of the up days.
“Feel great. Feel amazing,” said Phillips, who enters his fourth NFL season after being a 2021 first-round draft pick out of the University of Miami. “Just happy to be back out here. It was a little bit of a tease. I’m ready to start hitting some things, but it was great. I’m just so blessed to have my health and be out here running around with the boys.”
Patience was Phillips’ No. 1 takeaway from the whole recovery process.
“Your body’s going to be ready when your body’s ready,” he said. “I’ve just been doing everything humanly possible to give my body what it needs and time to get after it.”
Exactly that was what coach Mike McDaniel, who always made sure to steer clear of creating a timeline for Phillips, cautioned during the rehab. He never wanted his electric pass rusher to overwork himself trying to speed up his recovery, possibly leading to an aggravation.
“What I got to learn about Jaelan Phillips is he’s a very capable, strong learner. This was a test of mental fortitude,” McDaniel said. “It is a long-vision challenge to attack this injury appropriately. Not something that, by nature, is totally his speed. He wants to fix the issue and go play.”
Of course, devastation was one of the emotions Phillips went through after tearing the Achilles. It was a moment captured in detail by the cameras of HBO reality series “Hard Knocks,” and Phillips has rewatched the episode multiple times since.
“I was just so devastated that all the work that we put in, together as a team and individually — and then the whole offseason — culminated into that,” he recalled, finishing the season with 6 ½ sacks and vying to top his career best of 8 1/2. “I felt like I was really hitting my stride. Especially the way that game was going. Like I said, I was hooping. I was balling out. Mike had told me before the game, this is your opportunity to be a household name. I was kind of riding high, probably the highest I’ve been in my NFL career, and then just to be humbled just like that, it was devastating.”
But then, came the fortitude.
“I remember going to the shower, and I was crying,” Phillips said. “I just told myself, ‘This is okay. I’m going to attack this, and it’s going to make me stronger at the end of the day.’”
“When it all went down, I knew he would attack rehab,” said Dolphins wide receiver and fellow Miami Hurricane Braxton Berrios. “When most people aren’t here, he’s here. Through OTAs and training camp, just getting after it. And the fact that he’s come back in such a short amount of time just speaks volumes to this training room and, really, him and his dedication to this team. It’s incredible.”
With Phillips practicing again, there’s still some comfort to regain in pushing off the affected right lower leg.
“It’s a process,” he said. “I definitely found that the more that I’ve done, the more confident I’ve gotten.”
Phillips has had conversations with several others that went through the same injury — Aaron Rodgers, Kirk Cousins, Shaquil Barrett and former Dolphins linebacker Vince Biegel among them.
He’s still uncertain about being ready for the regular-season opener Sept. 8 against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“We’re just playing it by ear,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve practiced with the boys in eight months. It’s hard to give you an exact timeline or date when I’m coming back.”
