Get ready for Dion Jordan to be moved to linebacker in 2015

Ever since Dion Jordan was drafted two years ago, many have been asking and begging for him to be moved to the linebacker position. Now, with a full offseason to prepare and with the coaching staff finally realizing his potential, it appears that the transition will begin to go into effect as soon as the books close on 2014.

“We’re going to evaluate everything here as we go into the offseason. That’s certainly going to be one of the main topics,” Kevin Coyle said. “We have got to find ways to utilize him more. There were some extenuating circumstances both last year, him coming in having a shoulder issue and then again this year with the suspension and so forth. We have got to get him in the right spot and we’re going to evaluate that real closely and we’ll see what we determine to be the best fit for him. He has the athleticism to do a lot of things, I think you saw that yesterday when he dropped in coverage and made a nice open field tackle. He rushed the passer yesterday, impacted some things. I think we certainly need to get him on the field more.” 

Coyle said that Jordan made an impact in Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings and played a little bit of everything – defensive end, defensive tackle, linebacker and special teams. 

“He was a force on special teams. I think he affected the play at the end of the game as well as covering kicks and things like that. We are trying to get him more involved as the season has gone on. Yesterday was a game that (the Vikings) didn’t come out (as expected). We had planned to use him probably more than actually we ended up being able to being that we had certain packages ready based on their personnel, like I’ve explained before. They kind of went with a lot more of their three wide-out stuff than they had showed previously. They were coming out with substitution personnel, so Dion’s role against some of their base things, we weren’t able to use as much as we had anticipated.”
 
Coyle hopes that Jordan continues to get stronger in the offseason so he can become a more dynamic pass rusher. He noted that it’s something the coaching staff is really going to study over the next few months to get the most out of his potential. 

Moving Jordan to linebacker would solve a big hole for the Dolphins, which would of course allow them to focus on other things. While he does have his weaknesses there, it’s hard to find a perfect player. Jordan has the athleticism to excel in just about anything he does on the football field and it’s likely we will see that out of him in 2015.

This story was written by Matthew Cannata. Follow him on Twitter: @PhinManiacs

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