MIAMI — Want to know the types of challenges that set a course for a season, and defines a career?

Then take a deep dive into the undertaking newly added Miami Dolphins inside linebacker Tyrel Dodson faces this week, as a difficult challenge is being placed on the newest Dolphins player’s shoulders.

Josh Jacobs is in the midst of another Pro Bowl caliber season.

The six-year veteran is 56 yards shy of his fourth 1,000 yard season, and first with the Green Bay Packers, his new team.

This two-time Pro Bowler, and last year’s leading rusher, leads the NFL’s third best rushing attack, a ground game that trails only the Philadelphia Eagles and Baltimore Ravens with an average of 151.6 rushing yards per game.

Jacobs presents the greatest challenge Miami faces in Thursday night’s nationally televised Thanksgiving night game against the Packers, and the Dolphins will seemingly have to stop him with one hand tied behind its back, figuratively.

Anthony Walker Jr., the inside linebacker who stitched up Miami’s leaky run defense when he replaced David Long Jr. as the starter paired with Jordyn Brooks earlier this month, won’t play in Thursday night’s game because he suffered a troublesome hamstring injury in Sunday’s 34-15 win over the New England Patriots.

“I don’t see it being extensive time,” coach Mike McDaniel said when asked about the severity of Walker’s injury on Monday. “We are short on time (for the Packers game) and so probably will be unlikely for this week, but it didn’t seem like one of those long-term situations.”

The Dolphins, which are allowing 4.3 rushing yards per attempt and 106.9 per game, have been spotty defending the run most of 2024.

Miami, which has won the past three games, has held five of the season’s 11 opponents to fewer than 100 rushing yards, and all of those games came in the recent stretch.

Four of the five coincided with Walker replacing Long, who was released more than two weeks ago and signed to the Detroit Lions practice squad, as the team’s starting inside linebacker, and named the green-dot player, which is the defender whose helmet holds the communication system that connects him with the coaching booth.

Weaver’s stabilizing presence is one of the main reasons Miami’s defense has improved as of late.

“He’s a very calming influence on the defense and the guys around him, and from the Mike backer position, that is invaluable,” defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver said when discussing Walker last week. “He can help put out some fires that are sometimes created out there by guys that don’t necessarily know what to do in that particular moment.”

Walker was replaced Sunday by Dodson, a fifth-year veteran who was claimed off waivers from the Seattle Seahawks on Nov. 12.

Dodson contributed five tackles and delivered an interception in the second half of the Patriots win.

Because Dodson, whom the Seahawks released during their bye week after pinpointing the team’s then leading tackler as the cause for the run defense’s struggles, comes from a system similar to the one Weaver runs because he and Seahawks head coach Mike MacDonald worked together in Baltimore.

According to McDaniel, the only change is a few terms used for different plays, so the transition has been relatively smooth for Dodson, who has logged 76 tackles, two sacks, one interceptions and forced a fumble in the 11 games he’s played in 2024 for both teams.

Replacing Walker for a half is one thing, but taking command of Miami’s defense for the stretch Walker’s sidelined — a week or a month — is another, and will test whether Dodson should be viewed as a legit NFL starter.

Or were the Seahawks right about his run defensive struggles? Jacobs and the Packers will certainly put that that theory to the test.

“I love ‘TD’ (Tyrel Dodson). I love what he brings to this defense and obviously, just the experience he has,” Weaver said of Dodson, who is expected to start his 25th NFL game in five seasons. “If he’s called upon, the one thing I know is he’s ready. He’s ready to go in and he’ll play at a high level for us.”

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