Every so often, football delivers a storyline so perfectly scripted it feels impossible to make up.
The Miami Dolphins have one of those stories, a quirky coincidence that bridges two very different eras of the franchise. It's the story of two Jordan Phillips es: one whose Dolphins tenure faded into the background, and another hoping to make sure his is remembered for all the right reasons.
In 2015, Miami used a second-round pick on defensive tackle Jordan Phillips. Almost exactly a decade later, the Dolphins drafted another defensive tackle with the exact same name.
Same name. Same position. Same franchise. Ten years apart.
That's where the similarities end, and where the story really begins.
The first Jordan Phillips arrived in Miami as a rookie from Oklahoma, known as a walking highlight of what the human body shouldn't be able to do.
Phillips 1.0 - as we'll refer to him here - was 6 feet 6, over 330 pounds, and could do a standing backflip. Scouts drooled, and Fins coaches couldn't wait to insert him directly into the defense.
Then came the problems. So many problems. Ones that, sadly, overshadowed the flashes of play that teased for years to come.
The first Phillips had a motor that ran full speed on some snaps, but ran out of gas on others. The effort questions followed him through the building until the Dolphins finally waived him midway through the 2018 season, essentially giving away a former second-round pick because talent was no longer worth the lack of consistency.
Miami Dolphins cornerback Byron Maxwell (41), defensive end Andre Branch (50) and defensive tackle Jordan Phillips (97) during the first half against the Los Angeles Rams at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the 2016 season. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The twist? To his credit, Phillips wasn't done. He ultimately bounced to Buffalo, blew up for a 9.5-sack season, cashed in with Arizona , and kept finding NFL paychecks for a decade. He was still on a roster last season, 10 years after Miami called his name.
That's not nothing. At the end of the day, Phillips overcame early struggles in Miami to earn himself a pension-worthy career and many millions of dollars.
The new Jordan Phillips, the player Miami took out of Maryland in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft, will never do a backflip. He's a bull in the best way possible.
Early in his career, Phillips 2.0 is known for showing up consistently and compulsively, and for improving each day. His rookie stats - 34 tackles, no sacks - were pretty forgettable, but his offseason work ethic and improved physique clue everyone paying attention to what's to come in his sophomore season.
As his new head coach, Jeff Hafley tells it, one of the highlights of his short tenure in Miami includes a story about his first days on the job that sounds made up until you remember who he's talking about.
"I think it was probably the day after I got hired, I came in early, and he was probably the only guy in the building," Hafley said. "When I was walking out at night, he was walking out at night. So he was either following me... - I'm just joking, he wasn't following me - but the guy just always works. He takes care of his body. He eats right. He is in the weight room on days off, and he embraces playing the run, and he embraces double teams, and he embraces the dirty work, which most people in our league don't like to do."
Read that quote again. If you're a Fins fan who knows ball, you could be blindly shown those quotes and know exactly which Jordan Phillips they were referring to.
Zach Sieler , the standard-bearer for Miami's defensive line, put it even more succinctly. "I think one of the first things he got in trouble for was squatting too much," Sieler said, smiling. "He's worked his tail off this offseason; to see his growth from last year to this year has been incredible."
Getting in trouble for squatting too much. The first Jordan Phillips may have gotten in trouble for sitting too much, but never squatting too much.
If you want to understand what makes the new Phillips tick, listen to the way he describes his own energy. Asked this offseason why he's always the first one sprinting onto the field when the defense takes over, he answered with a hypothetical about your dog.
"Say, for example, your pet gets loose and just runs out there in the road. Are you just going to get up and slowly go about, or are you going to run?" Phillips said.
"You've got to have urgency about everything that you do. This is a fast and physical game, so you can't walk on the field. You can't just slow jog. At the end of the day, there's a guy who's lined up in front of you who is going to try to kill you. So you've got to take the field the right way. It's just a mindset. It's a mentality."
A mindset. A mentality. The exact two things the franchise spent four years waiting to see from the first guy with his name on the Dolphins roster.
The original Phillips proved that raw talent can keep you employed in the NFL for a decade, even when the effort goes on and off like the air conditioning in the summer. The new one is out to prove the inverse: that relentless effort can do the same for a player whose physical ceiling hasn't been his biggest asset coming into the league, and, as is apparent from his late-round draft selection, comes with a fair amount of doubters from offices across the league.
Ten years from now, if Jordan Phillips II is still collecting NFL paychecks, it won't be because of the hype around weight-room looks. It'll be because of what he did before sunrise, after dark, and on every single snap in between.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/dolphins/onsi as How Jordan Phillips 2.0 Is Setting Himself Up for More Success Than the (More Gifted) Original .
