The injury bug has officially bitten the Miami Dolphins.

Jaelan Phillips suffered a right knee injury late in the third quarter of Monday’s 31-12 loss to the Tennessee Titans and was ruled out for the remainder of the game. This comes nearly two months after the Dolphins activated Phillips, who suffered a ruptured right Achilles tendon in late November 2023.

The severity of the injury is unknown, but coach Mike McDaniel mentioned that Phillips left the stadium wearing a knee brace.

“I don’t know much,” McDaniel said Monday night. “I know he had braces, but beyond that I’ll have to find out more tomorrow.”

Phillips initially limped off the field in the second quarter after an unclear injury, but was able to return a short time later. Late in the third quarter, the star outside linebacker limped again but was instead taken to the locker room before the Dolphins subsequently ejected him.

In the locker room, players couldn’t help but express their sadness for Phillips.

“I pray for Jaelan,” said Emmanuel Ogbah. “This is my buddy. He’s like my little brother. I just pray that everything will be okay with him because I know how hard he fought to come back from the Achilles injury. My heart goes out to him.”

“It sucks,” Calais Campbell said. “Injuries are the worst part of the game. I saw the play. It happens. It’s football. It is what it is. That’s annoying. I wish him a speedy recovery and we will get him back when we get him back.”

The Dolphins’ defense was already reeling without its leading tackler in linebacker David Long Jr. and starting cornerback Kendall Fuller, both of whom were sidelined shortly before kickoff. Even worse, Pro Bowl outside linebacker Bradley Chubb still remains out as he recovers from a torn ACL. But losing Phillips, less than six months after the Dolphins exercised his fifth-year option, is huge considering how tough it was for the 2021 NFL Draft pick to come back.

“It just taught me a lot of patience,” Phillips said of the mid-August recovery. “Your body will be ready when your body is ready, so I just did everything humanly possible to give my body what it needed and took the time to take care of it. I have such a good training staff here and such a good strength team and we’ve been working hard for eight and a half months now. I just feel, like I said, really lucky to be back out here doing what I love.”

Should Phillips miss time, rookie Chop Robinson and journeyman Quinton Bell will likely get an extra run. Robinson has shown great potential as a pass rusher – he certainly turned heads at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ joint practice – but needs to improve as a run stopper.

Robinson has “grown a lot just because we ask a lot of the edge defenders in our defense,” coach Mike McDaniel said in early September. Specifically, the former Penn State edge rusher has learned to “play the game within the game” and improved his “situational awareness.”

“He doesn’t waste a day on the field, which is good news for us because we are counting on his contribution,” McDaniel added. “That’s the great thing about Chop: He attacks every practice like a veteran would, like you’re trying to get something out of it. ”

Bell, on the other hand, is more of an unknown. Bell, a receiver who turned linebacker at Prarie View A&M, was one of the surprise additions to the 53-man roster after an impressive training camp. The 2019 seventh-round pick has made his way around the league — he’s been waived six times and promoted and demoted from the practice squad another 24 times — but has apparently found a home with the Dolphins.

“The most important thing (with Bell) is his mindset,” outside linebackers coach Ryan Crow said. “He attacks everything at 100 miles an hour and does it right. He is a hungry player. When you look at how the players react to him, you see a great player who flies around and tries to do everything he can to help the defense.”

With the loss of Phillips, the Dolphins have now lost at least one key player in each of their last three games. Tua Tagovailoa suffered a concussion in the Week 2 game against the Buffalo Bills. In Week 3, both Fuller and All-Pro tackle Terron Armstead also suffered concussions that forced them out of the game early.