*** DOLPHINS NEWS ***
Nov 29, 1996: -- Oliver Benched; Hill to Start --
DOLPHINS NEWS:
The Miami Herald is reporting that the Dolphins are projecting
that safety Louis Oliver has lost his starting job and will be on the
bench behind Shawn Wooden on Sunday against the Raiders. Right now,
it looks as if Sean Hill will start at free safety and Shawn Wooden
will move to Oliver's strong safety spot.
In an interesting coincidence, both Sean Hill and Shawn Wooden
were drafted by the Dolphins as cornerbacks, but have been moved to
safety. Sean Hill has been an outstanding special teams player for
the Dolphins, and has been named the Dolphins' special teams player
of the year for each of the last 2 years.
Oliver is being benched for his play against the Steelers on
Monday night, when he made a coverage mistake on the final touchdown
play that allowed the Steelers to take the lead late in the 4th
quarter. According to Jimmy Johnson, Oliver was out of position on
the play and ran into Terrell Buckley, allowing the Steeler's Ernie
Mills to get wide open in the back of the endzone.
JJ did say that Oliver is in his plans next year, perhaps
getting some time at linebacker, but has also said that he expects to
make a lot of changes in the off-season.
In other news, Keith Sims returned to practice on Wednesday
for the first time since spraining his knee against the Oilers 10 days
ago. According to reports from Miami, he's only about 50% healthy and
the Dolphins won't make a determination about his status until
gameday.
Also, Jerris McPhail is having a little trouble with his
recovery and is now projected to be out of the lineup until the Bills'
game.
And, in the rumor department, Jeff Cross may have had trouble
getting along with new defensive line coach Gary Godette and that may
have had something to do with his being waived last week. Apparently,
Cross took exception to some of Godette's methods and the two had
words in practice last week - right before he was waived.
My Comments:
It surprises me that Oliver was benched, because he has always
been one of the more aggressive players on the defense. However, big
mistakes lose games and one of the Dolphins' biggest problem this year
has been mistakes in the secondary. JJ seems to think that it's the
safeties that have been the problem, and perhaps he's right.
As far as Jeff Cross is concerned, the rumors about him not
getting along with Godette are just rumors, but they certainly do
explain the way in which he was dismissed. JJ certainly doesn't
tolerate trouble on his team and Cross may have felt that he deserved
more attention than he was getting.
Related Info:
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Curt Fennell,
curt@phins.com, DOLFAN in New England
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