Daily Dolphins digest

[DolFan619]

http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/sports_football_dolphins/2008/08/daily-dolphins.html

Daily Dolphins digest

It's been a busy day in Dolphins land, so I'm going to do my best to help most of you 9-to-5ers keep up with Tuesday's story-lines.

Coach Tony Sparano just about admitted on Tuesday that the Dolphins starting quarterback job is down to a two Chad's race.

When I asked about the other two quarterbacks in camp....you know, remember Josh McCown and John Beck....he basically ignored the question like he's been ignoring the two passers for over a week.

"I want to see [Chad] Pennington a little bit more, and certainly I want to see Henne," Sparano said. "We might play them all. We might play five, I might play."

We in the media found his throw away joke funny, but I don't think McCown and Beck are laughing.

Joey Porter is on the fritz again, and considering he really hates the rehab work since it's more grueling than practice, his latest knee injury can't be a good thing. It seems like father time is catching up to this 31-year-old.

Porter was on the sidelines of the afternoon practice talking to Sparano for about five minutes.

I was initially optimistic Porter was gearing up for a resurgent season in 2008 based on the theory that the Dolphins 3-4 scheme catered to his skill-set. But it doesn't help his case if he can barely practice, and limps into Sundays.

Former disgruntled Atlanta receiver Joe Horn has interest in joining the Dolphins according to his agent. The Dolphins do lack depth and experience at receiver, but is a 36-year-old really the answer? Especially when this team can afford to wait until Aug. 30th and pick from about 100 other receivers that will hit the waiver wire.

Much like me, Sparano admitted that he thinks Ronnie Brown's thumb injury might be a blessing in disguise because it slows down his return from the ACL injury he suffered 10 months ago.

Brown, who hasn't looked that hot in his handful of carries during the exhibition season, is back to doing rehab work to strengthen his surgically repaired right knee.

"Bottom line, this will be the best he will feel over the next 20 weeks," Sparano said. "[Brown] will have time now to strengthen that knee a little bit, and do some work with it. Things that maybe he wasn't able to do over the last three and a half weeks."

Sparano said Brown's rehab assignment is all about "making good out of a bad situation, and at the end of this he's going to feel pretty good physically."

As for the rumors about the Dolphins shopping Brown, Sparano shot them down, saying "there's no chance that we're trading Ronnie Brown."

He also said there has been no discussions internally, or externally on the subject. But even if there had been talks on the subject, would he really admit it?

The rumor doesn't make much sense to me considering Brown's trade value couldn't be any lower right now. But I'm sure the Dolphins will listen to any team offering up a second round pick, or a quality veteran like Anquan Boldin. After all, remember Jeff Ireland did say earlier this summer that every player on the team is on the trading block....

As for Michael Lehan's return to practice, Sparano said the team would love to get him out there for Saturday's game, but "we do need to be smart and I'm sure there's more tests here that need to go on when we're out there on the practice field. He hasn't really dealt with a one-on-one rep or those types of things yet which will all happen here in the next day or two."

We got a chance to look at the Dolphins two-minute drill today and Lehan looks like he's a week or two away. After each snap he was limping back to the line of scrimmage.

Now that I mentioned the two-minute drill I've get into what I saw. All four quarterbacks got a rep and here were the results:

Pennington's drive: Great corner route to Derek Hagan, which was caught over Chris Crocker for 20-plus gain. Ted Ginn Jr. caught a 10 yards dig and shakes Andre Goodman for what would have been a big RAC opportunity. Ricky Williams runs for short gain. Greg Camarillo drops a catchable ball. Patrick Cobbs makes a big run on the left side, and Dan Carpenter converts a 42-yard field goal.

Henne's drive: Checkdown to Jalen Parmele. David Martin pulls in a 10-yard reception on a dig. Anthony Armstrong tight ropes the sideline for a beautiful catch over Nathan Jones. Parmele has a decent run. Henne throws the ball away before the buzzer sounds and pocket collapses. One of the backs get stopped for a TFL that kills the clock. Scoring opportunity wasted.

Beck drive: sack, incomplete pass, incomplete pass on a nice deep throw. Beck gets pulled.

McCown drive: Jayson Foster makes a sideline catch. Justin Peelle drops a short pass. Bad throw to David Kircus. Kircus gets a square in for a first down. Will Billingsley breaks up a pass to Foster. Foster catches a pass along the sideline that gets the offense in field goal position, but Carpenter misses the 49-yarder wide left.

Not that you got your practice fix - was it as good for you as it was for me - we'll get back to the news.

Finally, Sparano has finally acknowledged that hotshot rookies Kendall Langford and Donald Thomas have won the starting spots on the offensive and defensive line.

"I think it's Donald's job to lose," Sparano said. "If you don't play well enough, we'll find somebody else that does."

The same goes for Langford, who has been a beast in the first two exhibition games.

There is no possible replacement for Thomas considering the entire second unit of the offense line makes me hold my nose, but Langford does have a challenger.

However, it might surprise you that it's Randy Starks, not Matt Roth. Roth's move to outside linebacker is no longer an experiment. Consider him a hybrid player. Sixty percent of the time he'll an outside linebacker, and 40 percent of the time he'll be a defensive end.

As for Starks, a free agent addition, he's been coming on lately.

In case you haven't heard Vonnie Holliday glow about his fellow rookie defensive ends, check out this link Ethan Skolnick put up.

Also coming on the past few days is Chris Crocker, who has been working with the first team at free safety in place of Jason Allen.

"I think Crocker probably has some of the best cover skills that we have back there at the safety position, which helps us from a flexibility standpoint," Sparano said.

What this means for Renaldo Hill, who Sparano admitted is growing on him, and Jason Allen, the displaced starter, I'll work hard to uncover later today.

When I know you'll know.

And in closing, I'd like to share a lesson to all those cocky dudes out there who like to show off. Click the link.

Deuces.

> Posted by Omar Kelly at 3:32:04 PM