Dolphins place Bradley Chubb, Jaelan Phillips on PUP list to start training camp

Two of the Dolphins’ best defensive players won’t be fully ready to begin training camp.

Edge rushers Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips were placed on the active/physically unable to perform (PUP) list due to lingering injuries from last season, the team announced Thursday.

While playing against the Jets during the inaugural Black Friday game in Week 12, Phillips, 25, tore his Achilles tendon.

Then, Chubb, 28, tore his ACL in Week 17 on the road against the Ravens.

In his 12 games played, Phillips accumulated 6.5 sacks, seven tackles for loss and 27 pressures, while Chubb racked up 11 sacks, 11 tackles for loss and a whopping 70 pressures in 837 snaps.

Among edge rushers to play at least 350 snaps in 2023, both graded toward the top-end of the position, with Chubb slotting 12th and Phillips 24th in overall Pro Football Focus grades.

After a sensational second year in 2022, the 25-year-old Phillips was viewed as one of the NFL’s breakout defenders until the catastrophic injury cut his season short.

The Dolphins took on Phillips’ fifth-year option this offseason, keeping him under contract through 2025.

On the opposite end of the team’s defensive line, the two-time Pro Bowler Chubb has proven to be among the NFL’s more solid edge rushers since he entered the NFL in 2018.

Although he missed considerable time with injuries in 2019 and 2021, Chubb has totaled 39.5 sacks, 45 tackles for loss and 258 pressures in his six-year career.

Miami surrendered a first-round pick, running back Chase Edmonds and a fourth-round pick to acquire Chubb from the Broncos in November 2022 — then proceeded to give the lineman a five-year, $110 million extension two days later.

Without Chubb, Phillips and a slew of other valuable defenders, the Dolphins lost their final two regular-season games against the Ravens and Bills before crumbling to the Chiefs in the wild-card round in sub-zero temperatures in Kansas City.

The good news is that either Chubb or Phillips can be activated from the active/PUP list at any time this season.

Should their recoveries take longer than anticipated, they could be shifted to the reserve/PUP list, at which point they would need to miss at least Miami’s first four games of the year.

The Dolphins fully report to training camp on July 23 before opening the preseason against the Falcons on Aug. 9.