*** DOLPHINS NEWS ***
Apr 30, 1998: -- Quarterback Camp - Day 2 --
There was not much news from yesterday's quarterback camp in
Davie, Florida. The Dolphins continued to practice the new offense
that they have installed this year while the rain made footing
difficult on the field. However, Yatil Green and Kirby Dar Dar both
had good practices and that's important, especially for Yatil Green's
confidence and recovery.
There was a noteworthy item today in the Sun-Sentinel about JJ
altering his traditional training schedule to try and instill more
aggressiveness in the players. In the past, each half of the team
would go off to practice separate drills, but now, half of the offense
and the defense come together at the beginning of practice and work on
strip drills and extension drills. Strip drills are designed to teach
players to cause fumbles and extension drills are designed to work on
pass breakups.
"[In the past] we've had defensive players trying to strip the
ball from defensive players," JJ said. "I thought it only makes sense
to combine the drills and have the defensive players try to strip the
ball from the offensive players. So this is something we came up
with."
Part of the new aggressiveness will be an increase in what
they call "press" coverage of opposing receivers. Instead of giving
opposing receivers a lot of cushion, the Dolphins are going to play
80-85% press coverage, which is basically just a variation on close
man-to-man coverage.
The cornerbacks will be told to play tight to opposing
receivers, knocking them at the line of scrimmage, disrupting their
timing and keeping tight with them in close coverage down the field.
In the past, the Dolphins haven't felt confident that their
safeties could assist well enough to make that kind of play possible,
but now, with the addition of Brock Marion, the shift of Calvin
Jackson to safety and the development of Shawn Wooden, JJ feels
confident that he can let his starting cornerbacks play much more
closely to opposing receivers.
To help out in this role, Corey Harris has moved back to
cornerback and is currently behind Terrell Buckley on the depth chart
on the left side. Harris' best years in the NFL were in 1995 and
96 when he play cornerback for the Seahawks and played in a press
coverage scheme more closely aligned with the current Dolphins' scheme
than last year's less aggressive alignments.
In other news, JJ said that draftee Brad Jackson would
definitely be able to compete with the other linebackers on the
roster, perhaps even being able to work his way into a starting
position. "From what I saw of Jackson so far, he'll compete for a
starting spot," Johnson said.
Jackson, at 6-0 and 229 pounds, is not big when compared to
the average NFL linebacker, but is as big as most of the Dolphins'
linebackers. He will most probably compete at the strong side
linebacker position where Anthony Harris rotated with Dwight Hollier
last season.
Jackson is almost a prototypical linebacker draftee for the
Dolphins over the last 2 years. He's smaller than most linebackers,
but was enormously productive in college, collecting over 100 tackles
in each of his last 3 years at Cincinnati. In 1997, he had 168 total
tackles, 13 tackles for a loss, 11 passes batted down and 3 sacks. In
one game against Boston College, he had 23 tackles. In the
Humanitarian Bowl vs Utah State, he broke up 6 passes and had 2
interceptions.
Fullback Stanley Pritchett is also having a good camp, showing
he can run and cut well, even on the wet grass yesterday. He says
that he feels stronger now than he has since he injured his knee last
fall.
Linebacker Larry Izzo is not faring as well, however. He's
having trouble getting his speed and acceleration back after his
Achilles trouble last year. But he understands what's ahead of him
and will be working hard to get back to 100% over the 12 weeks between
now and the start of training camp.
In other news, it appears that Karim Abdul-Jabbar and Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar have settled their dispute regarding the use of their
respective names in commercial endorsements. From now on, Karim
Abdul-Jabbar of the Dolphins will be known as "Karim Abdul" for
commercial purposes.
As you may remember, former basketball great Abdul-Jabbar sued
current Dolphins' running back Abdul-Jabbar to prevent him from using
his own name for fear that confusion might result when fans went to
buy merchandise endorsed by one or the other player.
My Comments:
The changes that JJ has made so far this year are all
encouraging, at least so far. The change in drills to increase
aggressiveness, the change in defensive philosophy to allow the
corners to play tighter coverage and the changes in the offense are
all steps in the right direction.
Whether you like JJ or not, there is one thing that you have
to admit about him - he's not afraid to change things.
In fact sometimes, I think he pulls the trigger on change a
little too fast, especially when he decides to release a player.
As for the changes he's making, I think it's pretty obvious
that they address some of the most needed areas for change on the
team. The Dolphins need to be more aggressive, the corners need to
play tighter coverage and the offensive play calling needed to be
simplified. There's no rocket science there, but JJ needed to make
the decision.
The statement about Brad Jackson is interesting. Clearly,
Anthony Harris did not develop as well as they would have liked last
year, but we shouldn't read too much into that statement just year.
JJ says a lot of things to the media and you shouldn't put too much
emphasis on a statement like this one, because JJ may change his mind
next week - or next month.
Nevertheless, that should be a good camp battle. You've got
to figure that, of the starting linebackers, only Zach Thomas is
guaranteed a starting job. Provided he improves over last year,
Derrick Rodgers should continue to start on the weak side, but the
strong side position is wide open.
The news on Larry Izzo is discouraging. While I trust his
motivation and attitude to carry him a long way, his leg may not be
able to keep up with his mind. All Dolphins' fans know about
Achilles' tendon injuries and how tough they can be to recover from
and Larry has a lot of work ahead of him.
And for today's comedy relief - Karim Abdul-Jabbar will now be
known as Karim Abdul for commercial purposes. Maybe he can marry
Paula Abdul and they can each change their last name to Abdul-Abdul...
Related Info:
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Curt Fennell,
curt@phins.com, DOLFAN in New Rochelle (almost)
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