A starter in 2019 and injured in 2020, what’s next for Vince Biegel? ‘Embracing the grind’

There was no playbook for Vince Biegel on how to spend the 2020 NFL season without football. He hadn’t had a fall without the sport since he was 7 — growing up in a Green Bay Packers-crazed family in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin — until a torn Achilles tendon in training camp robbed him of his 2020 season before it even began. He was coming off a season as a starter for the Miami Dolphins and expected to play a critical role in one of the league’s best defenses, and then an injury in the final minutes of practice one day last summer left him emotional on the practice field in Davie.

“Definitely disappointment, being hurt last year; not being able to be out there with my teammates, especially with the season that we had,” the 6-foot-3, 246-pound linebacker said Saturday. “It definitely feels great to be back.”

After nearly a full year away, Biegel finally returned to the field Wednesday at the new Baptist Health Training Complex outside Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens for his first practice since the Achilles injury last summer. He’s no longer a starter at outside linebacker — at least not yet — but he feels close to his old self and knows he’s improving every day as he shakes off the rust from more than 11 months away from football.

If he can be something close to the player he was in the 2019 NFL season when he had 2 1/2 sacks and led the team with 13 quarterback hits in 10 starts, Biegel will bolster the Dolphins’ depth at linebacker and potentially give them four starter-quality edge rushers.

Miami Dolphins set to begin most interesting, exciting training camp in decades

For the time being, Biegel’s opportunities will be even greater, too. Linebacker Jaelan Phillips, the former Miami Hurricane and No. 18 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, missed practice Saturday with an undisclosed injury and is “day to day,” Brian Flores said Saturday. With Phillips out, defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah and linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel got most of the first-team looks on the edge — just as they often did last year — and Biegel mixed in as the Dolphins try to ramp up his reps, Flores said.

“He looks good — still working his way back a little bit, but he looks good,” the coach said. “He’s our kind of guy. He’s tough, he’s smart. This guy loves playing football—team first.”

Biegel’s year away only further solidified that — not that it was every really necessary for the 28-year-old named after legendary coach Vince Lombardi.

Instead of spending Sundays in NFL stadiums across the country, Biegel spent them on his couch with his left foot propped up and his 18-month-old daughter on his knee. He tried to make the most of his time away from the field, just as he did when the COVID-19 pandemic cut into offseason activities earlier in the year.

“I’ve grown so much off the field as a man, as a person, as a husband, as a father,” Biegel said. “I am a big believer in, Everything happens for a reason. I was able to grow in a lot of things off the field.”

It’s too soon, though, to know how the year away might have affected him on it.

Biegel wouldn’t put a percentage number on where he is now, but said he’s “getting 1 percent better every single day” since he returned to action last week. He feels comfortable in the system after playing in it in 2019, and is now most concerned with getting back his explosiveness and physicality.

Above all else, Biegel has a reputation in Miami for his locker-room presence and motor. There’s a reason Flores calls him “our kind of guy” and the Dolphins decided to re-sign him to a one-year deal even after he missed all of last season. Miami trusts him to do all he can to get back to being the player he once was.

“Having that game taken away from you, you really appreciate the game of football in a different way,” Biegel said. “Being able to come out here, embracing the grind, being able to come out here and compete with your teammates — those things that you sometimes take for granted when you when you’re out here. When it’s taken away, you recognize it as it a blessing and it gets you better.”