Through the first few days of Miami Dolphins training camp, the ball has kept finding its way loose.
The defense has been active early, stacking up punch-out fumbles and interceptions as one of the camp’s clearest trends. That hasn’t happened by accident, either. Coach Jeff Hafley pointed Sunday to a defense that is trained to attack the football every day, and to a rookie who seems built for exactly that job.
“Punching the ball… you got to drill it. And then I think there's some guys that are really instinctive, like we just talked about Jacob.”
That “Jacob” is second-round linebacker Jacob Rodriguez out of Texas Tech, and he has already shown why Miami spent a premium pick on him. In his senior season, Rodriguez led the Big 12 with seven forced fumbles. He carried that same reputation into Senior Bowl practices in January, and it has shown up again in camp.
Rodriguez forced a fumble on newly extended De’Von Achane and also flashed his range with a pass breakup that was posted on the Dolphins’ social pages. Hafley singled out the Achane play when discussing the rookie’s start.
“He's got a really good knack for getting the ball out… He's got a really good feel and he's got really good timing and very instinctual. I mean, Achane, there was one, I think a couple practices ago where Achane actually had two hands on the ball and Jacob came in and it was a violent punch and the ball came out.
I think Achane even kind of smacked him on the back and was like ‘that was a heck of a punch.' "
Miami’s coaches are building that mindset into practice from the start. Hafley said the first two minutes of individual periods are devoted specifically to attacking the football, setting the tone for how the defense is supposed to play.
He also connected the takeaway surge to the way the defense is being called. “We're playing a lot of man coverage, but we're playing a lot of zone coverage. A lot of times when you play zone coverage and your eyes are all on the quarterback, you have a better chance for takeaways.”
That emphasis lines up with Hafley’s background in Green Bay, where zone coverage was a major part of the package. According to Sharp Football Analysis, the Packers played zone on 78.4 percent of their defensive snaps in 2025, the seventh-highest rate in the NFL.
But that same Green Bay defense did not produce many takeaways last season. The Packers had just seven interceptions and forced only eight fumbles, ranking fifth-worst and second-worst in the league in those categories. Hafley said turnover totals can swing dramatically from year to year.
“I think everything goes into that…then it's year to year, you know? I mean, I've been around teams that have been in the top five and then years I've done even more, you aren't. …Sometimes the ball bounces a funny way.”
That was true in Green Bay across Hafley’s two seasons there. In 2025, the Packers sat near the bottom of the NFL in takeaways, but the year before they forced 31 turnovers, good for fourth in the league.
That’s the nature of turnovers: they come one snap at a time, and so much of it comes down to being in the right place at the right moment. Miami has been doing that early in camp, and the defense has already shown how quickly those plays can change the tone.
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Tyrel Dodson has also surfaced as a possibility, and his situation gives the idea a different kind of appeal for a team looking for a lower-cost answer. With Miami carrying multiple linebackers who could draw interest, the focus has shifted from whether the Dolphins have depth at the spot to whether another team might try to pry some of it away before the market cools. [Read more 🡒]