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Article from miamidolphins.com
Sun Life Stadium will come alive again tomorrow night for the first time since the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV, and the only people more excited about that than the football fans are the Miami Dolphins.
Two solid weeks of practice and of blocking and tackling each other in training camp will get a welcome interruption when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers take the field for Miami’s preseason opener at 7 p.m. Head Coach Tony Sparano will get to see exactly how his defense under new defensive coordinator Mike Nolan looks against real opposition while at the same time paying close attention to the performances of those players battling for a roster spot.
The first preseason game is typically the lightest for the established starters and veterans as the teams need to start paring down their rosters from 80 to the final league maximum of 53. That puts the coaching staff in a tough spot because a team like Miami, which has so many new pieces both sides of the ball, needs to make sure the regulars get enough action to stay on track with the installation of the playbook. Sparano also needs to figure out who is where on the depth chart and this is why that opener keeps him up at night.
“It’s the toughest for this reason,” Sparano said. “We’ve got a couple guys that may or may not play during the course of this thing. But at the end of this say you take 75 of them to this game, you want to get 75 of them or close to it reps. And you’ve got to see them on special teams, and you’ve got to see them on defense, and you’ve got to see them on offense. The problem is you don’t control any of that; you control maybe when they get in but you don’t know how many plays you’re going to have the ball.”
Miami ran into that problem during one of the preseason games last year when one of its units only managed to get on the field for five plays in a quarter. That wasn’t enough to see how certain players handled specific situations so Sparano had to keep them in the game into the next quarter. By virtue of the domino effect, that meant other players got fewer chances or did not get into the game at all, and with only four preseason games, that makes it tougher to make an accurate evaluation.
Against Tampa Bay, Sparano needs to see some of the starters a little more than perhaps he would have in the past on both offense and defense because he and his staff have implemented more changes. Starting quarterback Chad Henne entered camp last year as the backup, and now he has a new weapon at wide receiver in Brandon Marshall and an offensive line that in the interior is still in flux. So while starters on other teams may only a play in a series in the opener, Henne, Marshall and the others need more seasoning.
Sparano plans to play Henne most of the first quarter and possibly into the second, depending on his play count, and then backups Tyler Thigpen and Pat White will split the rest of the reps. Chad Pennington will not play in this game as he has been on a pitch count so as not to put too much stress on the shoulder he had surgery on last year. Marshall, who missed most of the offseason workouts and mini-camps recovering from hip surgery, wants to continue developing chemistry with Henne, while others just want to get a look.
“I have four preseason games right now and as I look at them, I can’t find enough time for some of the players that I have to see,” Sparano said. “There are some guys that you really have to see a lot of when you start counting quarters with what you’re first group needs because they need time. You just can’t roll those guys out there and let them play.”
The rookies and younger players tend to benefit the most from the preseason games, and Miami’s rookie class is being counted on to make an impact. First-round pick Jared Odrick at defensive end and second-round pick Koa Misi at outside linebacker have been running with the first team and will get their chance to show how they stack up against another NFL offense. Third-round pick John Jerry at right guard is trying to prove he deserves to be a starter on the offensive line.
For cornerbacks Vontae Davis and Sean Smith and free safety Chris Clemons – all second-year players, they can reflect on their experiences as rookies and prove how far they have come. Davis will also get to face one of his former teammates at the University of Illinois, Bucs rookie receiver Arrelious Benn, and he is looking forward to that.
“We came from high school together and that’s my teammate, so he’s going to come at me and he’s going to laugh when I see him,” said Davis, who led the Dolphins with four interceptions last year. “I look forward to seeing him and it’s good to have him in the league. My first preseason game I didn’t know which end was up. My head was spinning, but he’s tough after catching the ball because he can break tackles. He’s real physical. I’ve never seen one guy tackle him.”
Davis will get his chance tomorrow night, as will this year’s rookie defensive backs like cornerback Nolan Carroll and free safety Reshad Jones.
Running back Ronnie Brown is entering his sixth season but he is coming off of a season-ending injury for the second time in three years. He feels 100 percent and the mid-foot fracture he suffered against these same Buccaneers in a Week 10 win does not appear to bother him at all. His approach to the first preseason game is simple.
“We get to satisfy that itch from training camp because you’re just facing the same people over and over,” Brown said. “You finally get to see somebody else from another team and you’re kind of like, ‘Whew,’ now we finally get to see somebody else because we’ve been beating up on each other the last two weeks.”
Sun Life Stadium will come alive again tomorrow night for the first time since the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV, and the only people more excited about that than the football fans are the Miami Dolphins.
Two solid weeks of practice and of blocking and tackling each other in training camp will get a welcome interruption when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers take the field for Miami’s preseason opener at 7 p.m. Head Coach Tony Sparano will get to see exactly how his defense under new defensive coordinator Mike Nolan looks against real opposition while at the same time paying close attention to the performances of those players battling for a roster spot.
The first preseason game is typically the lightest for the established starters and veterans as the teams need to start paring down their rosters from 80 to the final league maximum of 53. That puts the coaching staff in a tough spot because a team like Miami, which has so many new pieces both sides of the ball, needs to make sure the regulars get enough action to stay on track with the installation of the playbook. Sparano also needs to figure out who is where on the depth chart and this is why that opener keeps him up at night.
“It’s the toughest for this reason,” Sparano said. “We’ve got a couple guys that may or may not play during the course of this thing. But at the end of this say you take 75 of them to this game, you want to get 75 of them or close to it reps. And you’ve got to see them on special teams, and you’ve got to see them on defense, and you’ve got to see them on offense. The problem is you don’t control any of that; you control maybe when they get in but you don’t know how many plays you’re going to have the ball.”
Miami ran into that problem during one of the preseason games last year when one of its units only managed to get on the field for five plays in a quarter. That wasn’t enough to see how certain players handled specific situations so Sparano had to keep them in the game into the next quarter. By virtue of the domino effect, that meant other players got fewer chances or did not get into the game at all, and with only four preseason games, that makes it tougher to make an accurate evaluation.
Against Tampa Bay, Sparano needs to see some of the starters a little more than perhaps he would have in the past on both offense and defense because he and his staff have implemented more changes. Starting quarterback Chad Henne entered camp last year as the backup, and now he has a new weapon at wide receiver in Brandon Marshall and an offensive line that in the interior is still in flux. So while starters on other teams may only a play in a series in the opener, Henne, Marshall and the others need more seasoning.
Sparano plans to play Henne most of the first quarter and possibly into the second, depending on his play count, and then backups Tyler Thigpen and Pat White will split the rest of the reps. Chad Pennington will not play in this game as he has been on a pitch count so as not to put too much stress on the shoulder he had surgery on last year. Marshall, who missed most of the offseason workouts and mini-camps recovering from hip surgery, wants to continue developing chemistry with Henne, while others just want to get a look.
“I have four preseason games right now and as I look at them, I can’t find enough time for some of the players that I have to see,” Sparano said. “There are some guys that you really have to see a lot of when you start counting quarters with what you’re first group needs because they need time. You just can’t roll those guys out there and let them play.”
The rookies and younger players tend to benefit the most from the preseason games, and Miami’s rookie class is being counted on to make an impact. First-round pick Jared Odrick at defensive end and second-round pick Koa Misi at outside linebacker have been running with the first team and will get their chance to show how they stack up against another NFL offense. Third-round pick John Jerry at right guard is trying to prove he deserves to be a starter on the offensive line.
For cornerbacks Vontae Davis and Sean Smith and free safety Chris Clemons – all second-year players, they can reflect on their experiences as rookies and prove how far they have come. Davis will also get to face one of his former teammates at the University of Illinois, Bucs rookie receiver Arrelious Benn, and he is looking forward to that.
“We came from high school together and that’s my teammate, so he’s going to come at me and he’s going to laugh when I see him,” said Davis, who led the Dolphins with four interceptions last year. “I look forward to seeing him and it’s good to have him in the league. My first preseason game I didn’t know which end was up. My head was spinning, but he’s tough after catching the ball because he can break tackles. He’s real physical. I’ve never seen one guy tackle him.”
Davis will get his chance tomorrow night, as will this year’s rookie defensive backs like cornerback Nolan Carroll and free safety Reshad Jones.
Running back Ronnie Brown is entering his sixth season but he is coming off of a season-ending injury for the second time in three years. He feels 100 percent and the mid-foot fracture he suffered against these same Buccaneers in a Week 10 win does not appear to bother him at all. His approach to the first preseason game is simple.
“We get to satisfy that itch from training camp because you’re just facing the same people over and over,” Brown said. “You finally get to see somebody else from another team and you’re kind of like, ‘Whew,’ now we finally get to see somebody else because we’ve been beating up on each other the last two weeks.”
