The Dolphins have had to counsel him about a lot of little things: being more engaged and attentive in team meetings, eating breakfast (something he wasn’t even doing regularly before being ordered to do so) and hydrating – all areas where he has recently improved.
The Dolphins believe those diet and hydration issues contributed to his hamstring problems in August, which forced him to miss the regular season opener. The previous staff believed he didn’t practice hard enough.
Gase likes what he has seen recently.
“He’s done a good job as far as making sure he’s doing those little things,” Gase said Wednesday. “I can tell he’s way more engaged in meetings, for sure. So whatever he’s doing outside the building, he’s doing it right because you can tell when a guy’s either not sleeping enough (or) doing something outside the building that’s preventing him to sleep enough. He’s been engaged for probably, especially the last month. I can tell since we’ve started the season, the way that he pays attention to installations in team meetings and things like that. It’s important to make sure that he corrects whatever we were having issues with. I can tell he’s feeling better.”
Jefferson has tried other creative things with Parker.
For example: He knows Parker admires former Lions receiver Calvin Johnson. So Parker told me that Jefferson gave him a cut-up of Johnson’s tape for Parker to study, hoping that will inspire him and push him to a new level.
“It would be great to have a career like that,” Parker said.
Gase said because his hamstring has healed, Parker is running more deep routes in practice. Perhaps that translates to games.
