The Media and the fans are all over Sparano and he answered questions fairly well and seemed to have an explanation for why he played Cobbs instead of RW and Ronnie as well as why Wilford was inactive.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/miamidolphins/index.html
Why he didn’t run the ball on 3rd- or 4th-and-goal from the 2 in the fourth quarter (the Dolphins instead threw incomplete to Davone Bess and Greg Camarillo): “One of those plays was an either/or play, the third down play. … It was predicated on what they do coverage wise, and it’s a helluva play. We scored a bunch of touchdowns with this play over the course of the years.
“They came on the field with goal line defense at that time in third down — a little bit risky on their part too. The situation dictated that we throw the ball. It was goal line defense and they were playing man coverage, and that’s what tells a quarterback to throw the ball there. If it was anything else we would’ve ran the ball. We gave (Chad Pennington) an either/or play, he made the right decision, we didn’t execute the play. Fourth down was a called pass.
“Predicated on what they do defensively, you have answers in both situations. The answer was a good answer. We just didn’t execute the play.”
Said Ricky Williams: “We called a running play, but we had to check it because we didn’t have enough guys to block their guys. … We’ll go in the huddle and we’ll say we’re in a run play, but if they give us too many guys we’ll change to a pass play.”
Why the Dolphins didn’t activate Ernest Wilford, and if he regretted not having his tallest receiver on the failed goal line plays: “We can play Monday morning quarterback right now, that’s great. If the ball is caught and all those good things, we’re not having that conversation.
“Ernest has gotten better each and every day out there. I think the guy works real hard in practice. The evaluation that was made yesterday not to have Ernest up was largely predicated on special teams, and (Brandon) London went out there, played 20 plays in the game and played pretty good on special teams. … That being said, there are places for Ernest, and we’re going to evaluate that right now. In fact, I did some of that this morning.”
Why Ricky and Ronnie didn’t carry the ball more than 16 times combined (and why Pennington threw 43 times): “It really wasn’t a strategy. What happened in the game is we got into one of those deals where we felt like at that time we needed to throw the ball and open the offense up a little bit to get some things going. … If you go back and watch the tape, you’ll see that that happened.
“Ronnie and Ricky were in the game in some of those situations, they just weren’t getting the ball handed to them. Ricky makes a nice catch on a wheel route on a sideline, Ronnie catches a ball coming out of the backfield. They can get touches a lot of ways.
“I don’t really think there’s gonna be a scenario where one of them gets 30 carries and the other guy gets five. … I think it’s gonna be kinda even as we get on in this thing.”
Why Patrick Cobbs was in on most third downs, and not Ricky and Ronnie: “Getting through preseason, I felt like Patrick was a guy that maybe could take some of the wear and tear off Ricky and Ronnie, as far as being able to protect in third down situations.
“And I also felt like he’s a pretty crafty guy out of the backfield. This guy runs good routes, he catches the ball really well and he’s explosive after the catch. He understands the protection, he didn’t really have any protection issues yesterday, so we thought that could be a good way to take some of the wear off of Ricky and Ronnie as the game got on.
“Patrick played 13 plays on third down and another 20 plays on special teams. … Ricky and Ronnie got 26, 28 snaps apiece, something in there.”
What happened on the 56-yard playaction touchdown from Brett Favre to Jerricho Cotchery (with Andre Goodman and Chris Crocker covering): “We peeked in the backfield.”
Who is the team’s backup kicker?: It’s funny, a couple of weeks ago I grabbed (special teams coach John Bonamego) and I’m like, ‘We have to think about this.’ Our backup placekicker is our punter, and our backup punter is our placekicker. They do OK.”
