Malik Willis Camp Update — August 23: Seven Sacks in the Giants Practice
2026 NFL Season · Sunday, Aug 23
Malik Willis went twelve of twenty and took seven sacks in Thursday's joint practice against the Giants, threw an interception that might have been an eighty-yard pick-six, and then sat out Saturday's twenty-six to three loss entirely. The roughest charted day of his camp is also the most informative one.
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Malik Willis completed 12 of 20 passes and took seven sacks in Thursday's joint practice against the New York Giants, per Alain Poupart's charting at Dolphins On SI — the roughest day of his Miami camp, and the only live work his week held, because he sat out Saturday's 26 to three loss with the rest of the starters, per Poupart's snap-count review. The detail under the completion line: eight of the 12 went to backs and tight ends, with De'Von Achane catching four, the interception went to Giants corner Paulson Adebo on a rollout left and might have gone 80 yards the other way, and the best throw of the day came late — an escape from pressure to hit Tutu Atwell across the middle. The sacks were a team-wide condition as much as a quarterback stat: Poupart counted eight by the Giants across Miami's passers, with the tackles losing repeatedly to Abdul Carter, and tackle Austin Jackson got benched by his own staff mid-practice after swinging at Carter during one of roughly six altercations.
The week's other development ran underneath him. Quinn Ewers is sidelined with a groin injury, per Dolphins On SI, so third quarterback Cam Miller started Saturday and Miami scored three points — Poupart wrote the game exposed "a major backup QB issue" — and the front office worked out six players Wednesday, two of them quarterbacks, without signing one, per DolphinsTalk. Every week the backup situation stays unsolved, the cost of a Willis injury compounds.
For anyone new to this file: the June read said the Willis case was conviction plus a sample too small to trust — six career starts, a strikingly efficient Green Bay cameo, legs as the constant. Two weeks ago the live evidence was the flattering kind. This week it was the other kind, and both are the point of August: a seven-sack afternoon against a real front, with a would-be pick-six on the ledger, is exactly the stress test practice against his own defense could never run.
What to watch next: whether Willis plays Friday's finale against Atlanta or Miami banks his exhibition sample at one drive, and whether a veteran quarterback is behind him when rosters cut to 53 on Sunday, August 30. We'll check after cut day.
_Data via nflverse._
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