What Dolphins writers are saying about Lions’ dominant joint practice

By now, you’ve likely read from multiple sources that the Detroit Lions had an absolutely dominant day of practice on Day 1 of joint practices with the Miami Dolphins. Chances are, though, you’ve mostly read those opinions from the Lions writers you know and love.

But what did the Dolphins reporters on hand think of practice? Remember, Miami just completed joint practices with the Chicago Bears last week. They have a frame of reference and perhaps a different outlook on how things went down on Wednesday morning.

So I’ve collected a bunch of resources from Miami writers to see what they thought of the Lions and if it was just as dominant as local reporters said. If you want to read some of those observations yourself, here are the resources I used:

• Miami Herald (C. Isaiah Smalls II): What’s happening at the Dolphins-Lions practice. Dolphins look bad
• Miami Herald (C.Isaiah Smalls II): Dolphins stock report: Lions dominate Fins offensively and defensively
• Palm Beach Post (Tom D’Angelo): Miami Dolphins-Detroit Lions joint practice: Dolphins are dominated on both sides of the ball
• Palm Beach Post (Tom D’Angelo): Tua Tagovailoa on Dolphins practice with Lions: ‘We didn’t have the energy we’re used to’
• Sports Illustrated (Alain Poupart): Dolphins 2025 Camp: Detroit First Joint Practice Recap

Amon-Ra St. Brown “is like that”

If you haven’t already seen the full minute of St. Brown highlights, go watch that now. Then enjoy these Dolphins writers fully understand why St. Brown is a two-time All-Pro.

From Smalls:

Stock Down: Defensive back Jack Jones: From the very beginning, Jones was chirping. The only issue was that he didn’t back it up. St. Brown consistently torched the fourth-year corner who seemingly sought out the matchup against the three-time Pro Bowler. It didn’t matter the period — 1-on-1s, 7-on-7s, 11-on-11s — if St. Brown saw Jones across from him, he cooked. Even worse: St. Brown did it in a multitude of ways. He caught deep balls. He caught a 5-yard touchdown. And he did damage with his fair share of grabs in the intermediate as well.

Via Poupart:

— Overall, Amon-Ra St. Brown was simply a matchup nightmare for the Dolphins’ secondary. He was able to get in space and was open whenever he needed to make a play.

Even Travis Wingfield, the Miami Dolphins’ team beat reporter, had to give it up for Jared Goff and St. Brown:

Thought Miami’s D matched the physicality of the Lions, but Goff and St. Brown were basically perfect. They didn’t get much on the ground but Goff was throwing handoffs and St. Brown catches everything.

Dolphins offense ‘frustrated’

Let’s start with some comments from Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa:

“I think today offensively was a very frustrating day in regards to what we wanted to do, what we said we wanted to do. We just weren’t able to get things jump-started. So that was very frustrating today.”

Tagovailoa specifically pointed to the...