Jordyn Brooks put together the kind of season that should have made him impossible to miss.
Instead, the Miami Dolphins linebacker keeps showing up a little lower in the conversation than his play demands. After a 2025 campaign that earned him First-Team All-Pro honors, Brooks is still being treated like he belongs just outside the top tier at his position.
That doesn’t line up with the production. Brooks led the league with 183 tackles in 2025 and added 13 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, a forced fumble and a recovery.
It was a huge jump from an already strong 2024, when he logged 143 tackles, 11 tackles for loss, 3.0 sacks and two fumble recoveries. The 28-year-old arrived in Miami after being taken in the first round by the Seattle Seahawks in 2020, and he has only gotten more impactful since.
The strange part is that the respect hasn’t fully caught up. Brooks was left out of the Pro Bowl despite his monster season, even though the Associated Press recognized him as First-Team All-Pro. That’s the bigger, more accurate marker anyway, and it should have settled the debate.
But the latest rankings suggest the conversation is still lagging behind the tape. EA Sports released its preliminary Madden ratings last week, and Brooks landed with an 84 overall, tied for 14th among off-ball linebackers. For a First-Team All-Pro, that’s a hard number to swallow.
Bleacher Report was kinder, but only by a little. In its annual B/R NFL 1000, Brooks came in ninth at the position.
Better, yes. Fair?
Not really, if you’re judging the full body of work he just put on film.
The numbers tell a pretty clear story about what Brooks does best. According to Sports Info Solutions, he had his tackles broken or missed outright just 9.9% of the time in 2025.
Among the eight linebackers ranked ahead of him by Bleacher Report, only Bobby Wagner was better in that category. His average tackle depth of 2.2 yards also tied for the best mark in that group, alongside Green Bay’s Edgerrin Cooper and New Orleans’ Kaden Elliss.
That’s where Brooks earns his reputation as a force in the run game. He’s the kind of linebacker who closes space fast and makes ball carriers feel him near the line of scrimmage.
Coverage is the area that keeps his profile from being spotless, and his 109.9 passer rating allowed was the worst among the top nine linebackers in the ranking. Even so, his run defense carries serious weight, especially when the alternatives are missing tackles at a much higher clip.
Elliss missed 18.2% of his tackles, and Cooper was at 17.5%.
Dolphins fans already know what Brooks brings. He’s dependable, physical and central to everything Miami wants to do on defense. If the rest of the league wants to keep brushing past that, Brooks has already shown he has no problem forcing a second look.
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Nate Davis of USA Today offered the harshest view, slotting Miami at the bottom of his forecasted standings, while Sports Illustrateds Conor Orr was more forgiving and still saw a losing season. The gap says plenty about how unsettled the Dolphins outlook feels right now, and why the next few months will matter so much as the team tries to prove its new setup can move beyond speculation. [Read more 🡒]
Dolphins Camp Is Creating A Few Early Roster Problems
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On the other side of the ledger, a few players have not matched that pace, including Jalen Tolbert, Quinn Ewers and Charlie Heck. Early camp always brings a little sorting and re-sorting, but this one feels especially useful for Miami because the competition is forcing the team to weigh development against immediate readiness as it starts trimming the edges of the roster. [Read more 🡒]