Practice intensity heats up this week

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Practice intensity heats up this week

By Ben Volin | Monday, August 11, 2008, 11:59 AM

It’s 90 degrees in Davie right now, but that’s nothing compared to the heat many Dolphins will be feeling over the next four days at practice.

Tony Sparano made it perfectly clear at his Monday morning press conference that it’s time to figure out who will and won’t be making the team this week. And the coaching staff will be taking note of every positive play and every mishap.

“We’re kind of out of the hurtin’ people’s feelings business right now,” Sparano said. “We’re getting into the real deal.”

The Dolphins have four days of practice before a Friday walk-through and a Saturday night exhibition game at Jacksonville. Cut-down days aren’t until Aug. 26 (to 75 players) and Aug. 30 (to 53), but Sparano wants to figure out who is going to be on the field Sept. 7.

And though he didn’t say it, the team probably wants to get the First Team offense acclimated with Chad Pennington as soon as possible.

“After today we’ll have nine true practice days left before game week,” Sparano said. “We got to get people ready to play that we think are going to be heading to the game, and get enough guys work that are on the bubble, as we look at it.”

The first practice of the week starts today at 2 p.m. You can follow all the action here in our live blog.

For about 50 players, every snap counts.