The pads came on at the Baptist Health Training Complex on Monday, and Jeff Hafley got exactly the physicality he asked for — just not the version his offense wanted.
The Miami Dolphins’ fifth practice of training camp, their first in full pads, belonged to the defensive line from start to finish, and the bill was paid almost entirely at one position. By the time the session ended, starting right tackle Austin Jackson was on the sideline, his replacement was getting run over, and the loudest voices on the beat were describing the spot as an outright problem.
Hafley had framed Monday as the day evaluations would begin to count.
“[The game] becomes more real — we can practice different tempos. … I do think you need to have that physicality and callous your body,” the coach said Sunday, previewing the first padded session.
The physicality showed up on schedule. It just ran in one direction.
Austin Jackson’s exit — and the question nobody can answer yet
The most consequential development of the day was also the murkiest. Jackson, Miami’s longest-tenured offensive lineman, got very limited work and watched most of the session from the sideline. He didn’t finish practice, pushing top backup tackle Charlie Heck into the bulk of team drills.
The team has offered no explanation, and no reporter has confirmed an injury. But the question hanging over the exit wrote itself, and Omar Kelly asked it directly: “Does Austin Jackson have yet another concerning injury?”
The word “another” is doing real work there. The 2020 first-round pick out of USC has fought his body for most of his career — an ankle problem limited him to two games in 2022, a knee injury ended his 2024 season in early November and required surgery, and a toe injury cost him most of last year’s training camp before flaring up again in the season opener and sending him to injured reserve.
When Jackson has been on the field, he has been Miami’s most dependable answer at right tackle. The problem has always been the first half of that sentence.
Until the team says otherwise, Monday’s exit is an unknown, not a diagnosis. But the Dolphins’ reaction to it — more on that below — suggests the building isn’t treating it casually.
Chop Robinson turned right tackle into a turnstile
Whatever Jackson’s status, the drop-off behind him was immediate and visible to everyone in attendance. Chop Robinson, the 2024 first-round pick who closed his rookie season with 6.0 sacks and entered camp as the defense’s breakout candidate, spent the afternoon living in the backfield.
Robinson blew past Heck on back-to-back snaps, earning a credited sack on the first before Malik Willis got the ball out just in time on the second, finding Ben Sims over the middle for a first down. It wasn’t an isolated matchup loss.
Marcel Louis-Jacques’s blunt assessment — “they have a right tackle problem” — was seconded by Kelly, who called it accurate while describing a situational period in which nobody at the position could hold a block.
As @Marcel_LJ accurately points out, “they have a right tackle problem,” referring to the Dolphins situational period, where nobody at RT can block anybody. pic.twitter.com/62iiyIcAkR
— Omar Kelly (@OmarKelly) August 3, 2026
Kelly went further in his own practice wrap, writing that the defense earned the edge on the day “especially after the last period where a QB had no time to operate because the right tackle play was TRASH once Austin Jackson was sidelined for unknown reasons.”
So, it was an active day at practice. Got to give the defense the edge on this day, especially after the last period where a QB had no time to operate because the right tackle play was TRASH once Austin Jackson was sidelined for unknown reasons.
— Omar Kelly (@OmarKelly) August 3, 2026
His summary of the roster implication was even shorter: the Dolphins “need to put out an APB for an offensive tackle.”
David Ojabo added a sack of backup Quinn Ewers during the same stretch, and Robinson caused repeated issues for Heck in a two-minute drill the offense could only salvage with a field goal.
One padded practice is a small sample. It is also the exact sample Hafley said would start separating players, and the separation at right tackle ran the wrong way.
Miami isn’t waiting — the Mokofisi workout
The front office’s response arrived before the sun went down. According to the Miami Herald’s Barry Jackson, the Dolphins are summoning former Utah standout guard Michael Mokofisi for a workout Tuesday.
Mokofisi is an interior player, not a tackle, so the move reads less like a direct answer to the Heck problem and more like a general admission that the offensive line room needs bodies. Miami was already thin up front Monday: guard Jamaree Salyer was not spotted at practice for a second consecutive day, alongside tight end Greg Dulcich, whose absence is reportedly not considered serious.
Add an uncertain Jackson to that list and a Tuesday workout stops being surprising and starts being procedural.
The rookies were the good news up front
The full picture of the offensive line’s day was not uniformly grim — and the distinction matters for how worried fans should actually be. In the first one-on-one sessions of camp, rookie offensive lineman Kadyn Proctor stood up Zach Sieler, the veteran who has spent a week making life miserable for every young blocker in front of him, and second-year lineman Jonah Savaiinaea held his own in the same period.
The Dolphins’ own social team was confident enough in the Proctor rep to post the clip — though Kelly noted the rookie might have gotten away with a false start on the play.
For the record, that might have been one of the plays where Proctor MIGHT have committed a false start. That’s probably why you don’t see the beginning of this clip https://t.co/06f3aM2gxm
— Omar Kelly (@OmarKelly) August 3, 2026
Savaiinaea’s steadiness continues a theme from the weekend, when he told reporters his move from left guard to right guard has left him a different player mentally. The interior of this line is trending up. Monday made clear the edge of it is where the season’s risk lives.
What Monday means for Malik Willis
Every right tackle rep ultimately traces back to the franchise’s central bet. Willis himself had a strong day for the second straight practice with multiple off-platform throws that landed on the money, including two to Malik Washington for gains of 20-plus yards — extending the momentum he has been building since his running ability took over Day 3 and quieting some of the noise from a first week that left him under real scrutiny.
But the second of those back-to-back Robinson wins is the play worth remembering. Willis escaped it by releasing the ball a beat early.
Quarterbacks who spend a season doing that get hurt, or get worse, or both — and Miami has organized its entire offseason around this one not doing either. A right tackle spot that can’t hold up in an August practice against its own edge rusher is not a depth-chart footnote. It’s a threat to the whole plan.
What comes next
The Dolphins return to the practice field Tuesday, the same day Mokofisi is scheduled to work out, and any update on Jackson’s status will land then at the earliest. The bigger checkpoints follow quickly: a public practice at Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday, then joint practices against the Commanders on Aug. 12 and the Giants on Aug. 20, where Heck and the rest of the tackle depth will face pass rushers who aren’t teammates pulling up at the last second.
Hafley wanted pads to make things real. At right tackle, they did — and reality has the Dolphins working the phones.
