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Dolphins 2009 Training Camp: Day 12 - Fri, Aug 14th |  | ||||||||
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Injury Reports | Future Schedule | My Comments | Related Links TODAY'S SUMMARY: The Dolphins held two practices on Friday with the focus turning to the upcoming pre-season game against the Jaguars on Monday night. The morning practice was in shorts, shoulder pads and helmets but there was no report on how the practice in the afternoon was conducted. The afternoon practice was short, only about an hour. The starting lineup continues to have Sean Smith and Randy Starks starting for the defense, while Shawn Murphy continues to start at right guard. Unlike previous days, however, it looks like Murphy got most, if not all, of the repetitions at that position with Donald Thomas working mainly with the second team. Thomas had been working a lot with the first team in the most recent practices. The news of the day is the sudden improvement of QB Pat White. After struggling for most of training camp, it appears that the light has gone on in White's head. On Friday morning, Pat White had 2 touchdown tosses and would have had a third if not for a great play by Jason Allen to knock the receiver out of bounds. White did have one interception, but that came when receiver James Robinson ran the wrong route. It might have been an even better day for White if his receivers had not dropped at least three passes that hit them in the hands. The offense had a hard time in red zone drills on Friday morning, with the defense coming up with a number of sacks, a tackle of Patrick Cobbs behind the line and some balls batted away from receivers in the endzone. Other highlights of the morning included a sack of Chad Pennington by rookie Sean Smith on a safety blitz, a leaping breakup of a pass from Pennington to Ginn in the endzone by Will Allen and a couple of coverage sacks of Pennington in the red zone. In the afternoon, rookie receiver Brian Hartline had a case of the dropsies, letting two passes go through his hands in receiving drills. This is unusual for rookie, who has been very successful in camp this summer. His counterpart, Patrick Turner, has been very quiet the last couple of practices. The two rookies may be running out of steam a little after fast starts in training camp. Also, kicker Dan Carpenter, who had an excellent rookie season, has been missing kicks on a regular basis over the last few practices, while newcomer Connor Barth had been hitting them. If Carpenter doesn't start improving, he could become a camp casualty. Highlights of the afternoon practice included a scrambling Chad Pennington hitting rookie tight end John Nalbone in the back of the endzone and Pat White continuing to look good by completing 4 of 5 on one series and 3 of 3 on another. Lowlights were Chad Henne's performance in red-zone and 2 minutes drills. Henne has been struggling this week in finding the open man. It looks like wide receiver Brandon London has cooled off a little over the past few days. Reports say that he isn't fighting as hard for receptions and he's dropping more passes. London needs to fight hard for the final wide receiver roster spot, or he's going to end up on the practice squad or the waiver wire. Channing Crowder leveled Ronnie Brown on one play, knocking off Brown's helmet and causing Brown to be woozy for a while. Crowder said later that he's only got one speed and that's all out. Chris Clemons has been showing off his speed and closing ability over the last few practices, breaking up a pass in the afternoon session to Ernest Wilford. Clemons was quiet in the first week of training camp, but has been improving over the last week and is playing much more instinctively.
The major roster battle now is between Dan Carpenter and Connor Barth, with Barth continuing to perform better than Carpenter. Carpenter did pick it up a little on Friday, but Barth still had fewer misses. It will be interesting to see if Parcells' legendary impatience with kickers turns out to be more than just an exaggeration. The last wide receiver spot is still up for grabs - assuming the Dolphins do keep 6 wide receivers. While they did open the season with 6 last year, the ended the year with just 4 on the roster. Nothing particularly exciting has been reported about either Anthony Armstrong or Brandon London over the last few practices, so it may come down to the pre-season games.
None.
Matt Roth continues to stand on the sideline and has not practiced since the start of training camp.
The Dolphins will practice twice on Saturday and take Sunday off in preparation for Monday night's pre-season opener against the Jaguars. The afternoon practice on Saturday will not be open to the public, however.
The kicker competition and the improvement of Pat White has added some drama to what has otherwise been a fairly dull week. In fact, Pat White has outperformed Chad Henne over the past few practices. One wonders how much of an influence quarterbacks' coach David Lee (father of the Dolphins' Wildcat offense) has had in Pat White's improvement. On a strictly administrative note, I noticed that my day numbering for training camp has been out of sync with the other news sources since Sunday. Apparently the team and the newspapers in South Florida do not consider a day off as a day of training camp, so I have adjusted my day numbering to correspond with the other sources.
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