The Miami Dolphins will get important an piece of their defensive line back for Monday Night’s matchup vs. the Los Angeles Rams.
Miami Dolphins star defensive lineman Zach Sieler returned to practice on Thursday, after being sidelined for the last two weeks with an eye injury. This means he will suit up for Monday Night’s ever-important primetime matchup vs. the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium.
Despite missing the last two games, Sieler is tied with Calais Campbell and Emmanuel Ogbah for the team-lead with two sacks. And although I can’t sit here and say those losses to the Arizona Cardinals and Buffalo Bills would be different — NO ONE, can deny how important Sieler is to Miami’s defense.
Now, he will return to Miami’s lineup when the team needs it most. And for Sieler, he can not be more ready to return to the field alongside his teammates.
“It kills me. It sucks to be in the trenches working with these guys day-in and day-out and then just on a Thursday just kind of not be able to – all of a sudden it’s, ‘Hey look you guys, it’s on y’all this week.’ And it happens, it’s football. It happens to everybody. It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen again probably, it’s just what it is.”
How did Zach Sieler get hurt?
Zach Sieler was injured by friendly fire during practice on October 25th, 2024, according to NFL Network’s Cameron Wolfe and Ian Rapoport. Sieler, to this day, is still unsure of how it happened.
“I remember just coming on the edge and I don’t know what it was, but something got up in my mask and I just remember my head going back and I just had to put my hand – kind of just dark, no other way to say that.”
What Zach Sieler is saying about the injury.
Reporters on Thursday were eager to find out what happened to Sieler, although Miami’s defensive captain could not recall how it occurred, it was unlike nothing he’s ever had to deal with.
“It’s nothing that I really expected to work through. And then once that swelling got under control and I was able to work through what happened and everything, it was better. So I’m glad to be back, it sucked missing two games. It’s never happened to me. Thankfully I’ve been fortunate enough and blessed to where I didn’t have to go through something like that. I’ve played through a lot and could play through a lot, but this was something that kind of had to be worked through separately.”
How the Dolphins defense performed without star defensive lineman Zach Sieler
Without Sieler, Miami’s defense received a bulk of the blame for both losses. And as a fan, it’s hard not to wonder how much different things would be for opposing quarterbacks, if Sieler were relentlessly chasing them down for 60 minutes. Here is how the defense held up, statistically, with Sieler out of the lineup.
Points Per Game without Sieler:
vs. Arizona | 28 points ( 2 points came off the Tua safety)
vs. Buffalo | 27 points
Rushing Yards Per Game without Sieler:
vs. Arizona | 82 yards
vs. Buffalo | 94 yards
Passing Yards Per Game without Sieler:
vs. Arizona | 307 yards
vs. Buffalo | 231 yards
Zach Sieler will wear a visor for the remainder of his career.
After speaking with his wife, Sieler plans to wear a visor for the remainder of his NFL career. And as someone that can’t ever get the picture of Cameron Wake out of his head, I fully support visors — on all Miami Dolphins players:
“I’ll have a visor on for my wife the rest of my career. (laughter) And she’s right, though. I’ll be honest, I don’t want to go through something like that again. As frustrating as a visor is – I remember in COVID we had the visor and the faceguards and getting in your stance, you start sweating on them and everything and it gets tough. But without the lower face – the COVID guard or whatever – it’s a lot better, just the visor.”
cam wake w/ visor #tbt pic.twitter.com/hct8QDPJEH
— josh houtz (@houtz) June 3, 2021
When asked if there was anything he noticed lacking from Miami’s defense over the last two weeks, Sieler joked:
“I’d like to think I bring some energy to it. (laughter) I think those guys did a great job these last couple of weeks. I think they held them under 100 yards rushing both teams and hopefully I can come back in and make that even better.”
