Training Camp - Day 3

The tweet birds are back at it again, with morning practice in full swing. Here are some highlights:

Omar Kelly:

• "Still no sign of Dolphins part owner JLo. I can't believe she hasn't come to check out her new team."
• "I'll admit Patrick Turner is a real smooth route runner, but I'm still waiting for him to make a WOW catch to back up all the hype he has."
• "Pat White is still having troubles with his accuracy. He's still throwing high and behind guys. The rook needs time."
• "Quentin Moses got to Henne when pocket collapsed, pushing FB chris Brown into him. Erik Walden beat Garner for a sack a few plays later." (Moses got a sack yesterday too...)
  

Armando Salguero:

• "blah blah blah blah!"

Edgar Thompson:

• "Justin Smiley back after being excused for the birth of his son. Did I mention Smiley just had a son. Just in case no one has read my last 40 tweets on the subject, Justin Smiley had a son. I have nothing to say about training camp, so I'm just going to talk about Justin Smiley and his wife having a son. His name is Jett. " (I might be paraphrasing)

Meanwhile, after practice yesterday, rookie cornerback Sean Smith took to the tweet-waves as well, and showed both humility and swagger in a series of posts linking to videos of various interviews he's done over the past few months and how shaky he was back then as opposed to now. Not a huge story, but it is relevant to other rookies. If you watched Pat White's interview from yesterday, you see a guy that a) seems to have no energy at all - some would say he's 'stoic' but he didn't seem that way playing at WVU (maybe he's a gamer, not a practicer) and b) he seems generally nervous and uncomfortable in front of the microphone/camera. While he possesses good traits like humility and understanding that he's here to learn, it would be nice for the star player of our draft to have some swagger too. Also, in that same video, he pulls a Steve Urkel snort. I kid you not.

I also kid you not when I say that, watching the PM practice highlight video, during stretches, Ernest Wilford can be seen sneaking an Oreo cookie. At least that's what it looks like to me....

• It's amazing to me how little Armando 'gets it' sometimes. In his latest report, he says that in the dime package, the Dolphins have JT and Porter on the ends and Merling and Starks in the middle. Then he says "Interesting that Kendall Langford, who actually had one more sack than Merling last season, is not in that mix as of now". Does he not realize that Merling and Starks are not there to rush the passer in that formation? Maybe when Roth comes back, as the second leading sacker of last year, they will replace Merling with Roth. Obviously Merling and Starks are two stout guys who are good at holding their ground. They also need to be able to drop back to eliminate the short middle passing lane. They will not be rushing the passer, at least not on a regular basis. Langford is much slimmer and is not best suited to play in the middle.
• But he does redeem himself with this tidbit:

  "I continue to be fascinated by the competition between rookie left tackle Andrew Gardner and weakside linebacker Cameron Wake. It was all Gardner the first day of camp. Yesterday belonged to Wake. This morning was a deadlock.

  On one pass-rush, Wake leveraged Gardner into the quarterback. On the very next snap, Gardner simply rode Wake wide and out of the play." (this is the kind of thing I like to hear about).

• Practice Video:

• Omar says, "Sparano said the Dolphins will hold a scrimmage Saturday in the afternoon session and wants a big crowd." This would be THE practice to go to.

Unrelated to camp, but it looks like I'll be lining up to see a Sandra Bullock movie...

• Brennan Marion has re-injured his ACL, and is done for the year. I have updated the depth chart.