Live Blog — August 11 Training Camp

[DolFan619]

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/miamidolphins/entries/2008/08/11/live_blog_august_11_training_c.html

Live Blog — August 11 Training Camp

By Ben Volin | Monday, August 11, 2008, 01:40 PM

Welcome back to the live blog! That was a long four days without live blogging. Missed you guys.

One exhibition game is in the books. Next up is Jacksonville this Saturday. Six practices plus a walk-through to go. It’s Sink or Swim time for the 79 guys in camp.

“We’re kind of out of the hurtin’ people’s feeling business right now,” Tony Sparano said this morning. “We’re getting into the real deal here.”

These practices are especially important for Josh McCown and John Beck. Did you see this item from Peter King this morning? He expects Beck to get cut, and he won’t get many sniffs from other teams once he is available.

The heavens opened up right on time, so we likely will be moving into the bubble.

Practice starts at 2, and the updates will start around 2:20. Feel free to post any comments or questions.

Enjoy the show!


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2:24

Lets get started, shall we?

Big news, guys. Chad Pennington is here at practice.

OK, seriously. Vonnie Holliday (hamstring) isn’t practicing today. He did some high-leg stuff during warm-ups and is riding on the bike, but isn’t in pads.

Joey Porter isn’t practicing either. He strained his back before Saturday’s game, and is day-to-day.

Jay Feely (groin), Michael Lehan (ankle) and Charlie Anderson (hamstring) also aren’t practicing, and are riding the bike.

With injuries to Porter, Anderson and Kelvin Smith (“serious” knee injury, Sparano said) not practicing, the Dolphins have added OLB Maurice Fountain from the Utah Blaze in the Arena Football League. You may remember him from his four years as a defensive end at Clemson (2001-04). Fountain apparently was named to the AFL’s 2008 All-Rookie Team, and also spent some time with the Manchester Wolves of AFL2.

Matt Roth continues to do individual drills with the OLBs.

McCown and Beck are both here. Guess Sparano was serious when he said he would work out all four quarterbacks.

2:58

Hey guys, sorry for the delay. Wanted to watch the QB drills before I did an update.

During individual drills, Sparano wanders over toward the OLBs. Matt Roth gives a so-so effort against Rob Ninkovich during one-on-one drills, and the linebackers coach shouts out, “Do it again! Look who just came over!”

Donald Thomas is once again the First Team RG.

Ernest Wilford drops a pass from John Beck during individual drills. No one is covering.

Chad Henne is a perfectionist. He throws a slant to Derek Hagan that is maybe a quarter-inch behind his receiver. Hagan easily catches the ball, but Henne slaps his hands together in disgust.

The quarterbacks are doing a lot of short stuff. Pennington gets rid of the ball fairly quick.

The running backs do receiving drills against the linebackers, the receivers work on getting separation from the CBs, and the OL goes up against the DL.

Pennington throws an interception to Chris Crocker on a pass intended for Justin Peelle. Nice job by Crocker stealing the ball away.

John Beck throws a nice deep flag route to Ronnie Brown, who continues to look great catching the ball.

Real nice throw by Chad Henne, threading one to Sean Ryan over the middle, with Edmond Miles covering.

Real nice throw from McCown to Anthony Fasano deep down the left side.

They break out into 9 minutes of 11-on-11 drills. Pennington gets the snaps for about the first 6 minutes.

First pass is a fade to Ginn on the right side. Ginn doesn’t look soon enough, and the ball glances off his fingers.

Next pass is a quick slant to Wilford, who runs right to the spot that was left vacant by a blitzing Channing Crowder.

Then a quick out to Fasano, an incomplete pass to Hagan, another quick out to Fasano, and incomplete fade to Jayson Foster and a high throw to Hagan, who still comes down with the catch.

Henne goes next.

A quick slant to Wilford is followed by a real nice square-in to Ginn, about 20 yards.

Next pass is incomplete to Greg Camarillo down the right sideline. “Camarillo, keep your hands in!” a coach shouts.

Next play is a rollout, and Camarillo makes a nice catch on the sidelines.

Final pass is an out pattern to Ginn, who catches it with Andre Goodman draped all over him.

That’s it for now. Back in a few.

3:33

Some more quick hits:

I come back and they’re doing some kickoff drills, nothing too fancy.

Roth and our new guy Fountain are getting private instruction from Pasqualoni.

11-on-11 Red Zone drills.

Pennington is up first.

After a quick out to Bess and a sweep left by Ricky, Pennington throws a Pick Six to Andre Goodman. Anthony Armstrong was the intended receiver. Easy interception for Goodman.

Pennington comes right back and throws a real nice fade pass to David Martin in the right corner, over Yeremiah Bell.

Will Allen and Channing Crowder get tangled up on a fade pass in the end zone, and come down hard. Allen sits out for a few plays, but eventually comes back.

Pennington certainly has a long way to go, but several members of the media are commenting about how practice is running a lot smoother with Pennington under center.

Henne is up next. He and Pennington have taken the Lion’s Share of snaps today. Beck and McCown have barely gotten anything in team drills.

Henne throws an out to Peelle, a playaction dump-off to Mauia and an end-around to Camarillo.

Finally, McCown gets in there. Jalen Parmele drops an out pattern, but then runs the same route on the next play and comes up with the catch.

McCown scrambles out of the pocket on his third pass and throws it away. And that’s it. He gets three snaps.

Now it’s Beck’s turn.

Nice lob to Bess in the right corner for a touchdown over Chris Roberson.

Then Parmele runs left.

And that’s it for Beck. Two snaps.

Now they do 11-on-11 drills, with no defense.

Pennington up first, once again. But they’re only working on the old Standford Marching Band lateral play that teams use at the end of a half. This is my favorite play in football.

Henne gets to run the drill, too. Anthony Armstrong manages to drop a lateral from Patrick Cobbs. These drops are contagious.

Hopefully this will tide you over for now. Practice ends soon, and I gotta talk to some players.

I’ll have one more update for you, but it won’t be for another hour.

4:27

A few more to finish the day:

11-on-11 drills. Pennington gets most of the snaps.

He throws a real nice sideline pass to Armstrong, and Hagan does a great job dragging his feet to complete a sideline pattern.

Henne throws an interception to Will Billingsley. Nice diving catch from the CB.

Sparano isn’t happy with the pace of practice. “This isn’t touch football, let’s tackle somebody!” Next play, Ed Miles gives a nice thump to Parmele.

Here are the final passing stats from practice:

Pennington: 13 of 21, one (maybe two) touchdowns
Henne: 9 of 15, 1 INT
Beck: 1 of 1. Yes, 1 of 1
McCown: 1 of 3
So it’s pretty obvious who the coaches wanted to see today.

Thanks for tuning in. Tomorrow we’re back with two more live blogs, at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Check out Edgar’s story later tonight on Pennington’s first day of practice, and I’ll be checking in with some injury updates and a couple other tidbits.

Have a Fin-tastic Monday,

BV

[DolFan619]

http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/sports_football_dolphins/2008/08/dolphins-repo-3.html

Dolphins report: Pennington moves offense

Let me preface this blog entry by reminding you I'm not a fan of quarterbacks, and I wasn't a fan of Chad Pennington.

Notice the word WASN'T. I don't like the Jets at all, and I don't like quarterbacks who don't have the arm to throw deep. But with that said, I'm pleased to report that Pennington's performance today was the best I'd seen ALL CAMP.

It seemed as if Pennington has been in this offense his entire career. Balls were being thrown before receivers made their breaks. Balls were placed either right in their hands, right over their heads for jump balls, or about to hit their helmet. Sometimes they didn't even see the ball until it was two feet in front of their helmets.

He is indeed pinpoint accurate. Now I understand why he's the NFL's most accurate passer.

Pennington worked with the first team all practice, got about 65 percent of the total snaps, and completed 13-of-21 passes during team drills. He threw one touchdown during redzone drills on a fade to David Martin. But he also threw a pick six that Andre' Goodman totally anticipated, which made me conclude the Dolphins opponents will be playing plenty of zone.

I saw about six or seven perfectly placed passes from Pennington, passes where only his receiver could have caught the ball.

"He was very accurate today, putting the ball on point. That's what you want from your quarterback," said receiver Ernest Wilford.

While I initially thought it was impossible for Pennington to learn this offense in two weeks, like coach Tony Sparano hoped, now I'm a believer.

"To him the plays are kind of second nature and he just has to look at the coverage," fellow quarterback John Beck said of Pennington.

As for the other QBs, Henne was exclusively working with the second team, and got the most work of the other three. He completed 9-of-15 passes and was hot and cold, like usual.

Beck got the least work, but he threw a touchdown pass on a fade to Davon Bess, who jumped over his cornerback to get it.

Speaking of Bess, it appears that he's been moved up the depth chart. He's now the slow receiver with the starting unit. Greg Camarillo played that role in Saturday's exhibition game, and Ernest Wilford held it last week after getting unseated by Derek Hagan for the starting spot.

> Posted by Omar Kelly at 3:48:28 PM

[DolFan619]

http://www.miamidolphins.com/newsite/news/top_story.asp?contentID=5956

Camp Dolphins Day 15: Pennington Makes Debut; Injury Update; Other Notes

August 11, 2008
   
By Andy Kent
MiamiDolphins.com

There was no easing into practice for the newest Miami Dolphins quarterback this afternoon, not with less than a month to go before the 2008 season-opener at Dolphin Stadium against the New York Jets.

Chad Pennington, who was a New York Jet up until last Thursday, was thrown right into the mix of an offense that has been developing for two weeks and into a quarterback competition that already was anybody's call before he was signed on Saturday. Of the 54 plays run during team drills, Pennington ran 28 of them, with rookie Chad Henne running 21, and after practice Pennington did some extra work with a handful of his receivers, leaving him a bit exhausted.

"I need some Motrin or something," Pennington joked as he stepped to the podium for his second press conference as a member of the Dolphins. "I try to remain calm on the outside and I'm like a tornado on the inside. There are a lot of things going through my brain right now as I try to sift through some things and work through some things."

The fact that Dolphins offensive coordinator Dan Henning was Pennington's offensive coordinator during his rookie season in 2000 should help the 32-year-old pick up the playbook faster than someone coming in with no exposure at all to Henning's offense. Sparano confirmed that Miami's playbook is a Sparano/Henning hybrid, with Sparano's terminology.

Since Sparano and Henning have seen the other three quarterbacks Henne, second-year man John Beck and seventh-year veteran Josh McCown, Pennington was given more of a chance today to show just how much he remembers from 2000 and how suitable this offense will be to his skills and his mental abilities.

"I think a guy can learn the offense and have a pretty good grasp of the offense in a week or two weeks time, depending on who that guy is," Sparano said. "To be honest with you, Chad is pretty familiar with some of the terminology. This is going to be a little bit easier than it would be for anybody else."

It still has been eight years since Pennington played in Henning's system, so he had to sweep some of the dust off of the materials he held onto from that 2000 season and acclimate himself to the nuances of Sparano's system. He has whole new cast of characters occupying the huddle with him, so he is busy putting names and numbers with faces.

Of course, from the sideline inside the practice bubble, Pennington looked right at home barking out signals, checking out of plays and connecting with his teammates. His very first pass in 11-on-11 drills was a 20-yard frozen rope to second-year wide receiver Ted Ginn, Jr. that bounced off of Ginn's hands as he got his head turned around a split second too late. He wound up going 4-of-7 on that opening series and finished the day 13-of-21 with a touchdown and one interception during Red Zone drills and credited his familiarity with Henning's system as making the transition a little easier.

"It did give me a little bit of a foundation, a little bit of a face to at least start with," said Pennington, whose 65.6 completion percentage over his career is tops in NFL history for quarterbacks with at least 1,500 attempts. "Some things are a little bit different but there were some things where I could recall. Now trying to recall something eight years ago is a little bit difficult but being able to look at some of the things on the plane helped. I stayed 10 to 12 hours yesterday trying to digest some things, so it's starting to come together. But I've got a long way to go, I really do, but I'm excited about the progress."

Pennington roamed the sidelines at Dolphin Stadium on Saturday night during the Dolphins' 17-6 preseason loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and familiarized himself with his new teammates, the play sheet and hearing some of the offensive calls through the headset, while he also chatted with Beck, McCown and Henne. On Sunday he went through a brief workout, located his locker and tried on his helmet and pads, and then watched film and studied the playbook from noon until 10 p.m.

Today's practice "was like a blur" and he even asked jokingly if they did practice. And while he is still trying to nail down the logistics and the practice pattern in terms of what drill comes next in the schedule, he never let his anxiety or uneasiness show in the huddle, and that immediately caught the attention of his offensive line and his running backs and receivers.

"I mean, he doesn't know any of us from the man on the moon right now, but he comes into the huddle and says, 'Give me your eyes,'" said fifth-year veteran left guard Justin Smiley. "We didn't break the huddle good one time and he was like, 'Nah, nah, nah. Next time, we've got to stand and break the huddle.' Just stuff a veteran with great leadership (would do). It's pretty exciting. It seemed like we were throwing some balls down the field and we were completing some passes today, which is exciting. But you can't say enough about his leadership in the huddle."

As he was bouncing around from drill to drill and catching on to the practice regimen, Pennington compared himself to his 4-year-old son going to football camp and he admitted that it will take time for him to grow comfortable with his new team and for his new teammates to grow comfortable with him. The biggest challenge will be how the other three quarterbacks handle Pennington's addition, and he went out of his way to praise their professionalism thus far.

McCown, 29, was signed as a free agent in the offseason initially to provide veteran leadership for Beck and Henne, but now he is one of two veterans on the roster and in today's practice he was limited to three plays, going 1-for-3 during Red Zone. McCown is maintaining a positive attitude, and although he crossed paths with Pennington a few times over their careers, he is ready to welcome him to the fold.

"It's just part of the deal, it's part of this business and you have to roll with it, take care of the things you can control and don't worry about all the other things because they're out of your control," McCown said. "I came here because I trusted their vision and leadership and I don't back off of it just because they make a decision that doesn't go my way. I trust what they're doing and I believe in everything they're doing and I'll continue to compete hard and do my best."

As far as the receivers that were catching balls from Pennington for the first time – except for tight end Sean Ryan who played two seasons with the Jets, they left the practice field with a good impression.

"He was very accurate today," said Ernest Wilford, who spent his first four seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars. "He was putting the ball on point and that's what you want from a quarterback coming in here on his first day, hitting his receivers. He was definitely confident (in the huddle). He wasn't afraid. He was one of those guys that definitely showed his leadership skills and you could tell he had been in that type of situation and that type of environment before and he executed the offense very well today."

Pennington holds the quarterback-receiver relationship in high regard and made that a point of emphasis during his press conference when he was asked to evaluate his own performance and that of the offense.

"For the first day I felt like things went pretty clean," Pennington said. "We have to keep working on it, and I have to start to understand. There's a thing I call the 'me-to-you factor,' between quarterback and wide receivers. I've got to understand each receiver, and they have to understand me. Sometimes you can't explain that, it's just that knowledge of knowing each other and having the feel for each other. That's individual. I have to understand each receiver. Understand how they run, how they run routes, what's their body language and then they have to understand me so that takes time."

Pennington compared this training camp to the one he went through in 2006 with the Jets, which was head coach Eric Mangini's first year at the helm. He described Sparano's tempo as up-tempo and has been impressed with the first-year coach's message of taking pride in everything they do, in a game and on the practice field.

Another key element of his transition is the communication between himself and his center, Samson Satele. That takes time to build and it's why it's the first thing the quarterbacks work on at the start of practice. There is only one element that remains a bit confusing for Pennington when he's listening to the coaches bark out orders, ad it has to with his first name, being that it's the same as Henne's. But Pennington believes he has found a solution.

"It's "rook". This double Chad thing; we've already had a "hanging Chad" problem in Florida," Pennington joked. "We have to simplify that because anytime Chad (Henne) is called, I'm looking around and he's talking to the "rook" Chad and not the "vet" Chad, so we'll have to fix that."

First-year General Manager Jeff Ireland offered up another solution – "Penny and Henne," since Penny was how Pennington was referred to in New York.

INJURY REPORT: Two days after their first preseason game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Dolphins are dealing with their first injury casualty.

Backup linebacker Kelvin Smith suffered what Sparano described as "a pretty serious knee injury," and the team waived him injured this afternoon ... Sparano also updated the status of linebacker Charlie Anderson, who strained his hamstring in the first half, as being day-to-day, along with defensive end Vonnie Holliday (hamstring) and kicker Jay Feely (groin) ... Linebacker Joey Porter was kept out of the game because of a sore back that flared up over the weekend and also is day-to-day ... Cornerback Michael Lehan (ankle) remains on the Active/Physically Unable to Perform List and all six players did not practice.

ROSTER ADDITION: The Dolphins signed linebacker Maurice Fountain today and he practiced with the team. Fountain played for the Utah Blaze in the Arena Football League after starring at Clemson University for four years and was named to the 2008 All-AFL Rookie Team after recording 13.5 sacks. Fountain, 25, recorded a sack in practice this afternoon.

ROTH ADJUSTING TO OLB: Matt Roth was working with the linebackers again after opening training camp at defensive end and Sparano had some nice words for the former Iowa Hawkeye after having a chance to look at film of Saturday night's game.

"I see tremendous strength and he really set the edge a few times," Sparano said. "He put good pressure on the quarterback in some rush situations. When I say, 'set the edge,' I mean in the run game. He really set the edge, played on the offensive side of the line of scrimmage. But in the pass game, his pass rush was really solid. He's down the middle usually of his defender. Now that being said, we need to work on some things that way. Down the middle is good, but down the middle of a 300 pound tackle every single down, we need to come up with a little something different there."

DOLPHINS TIDBITS: Ricky Williams had another impressive long run on a draw play, turning on the afterburners once he got in the secondary and nearly outrunning safety Jason Allen ... Patrick Cobbs showed a quick burst and strong hands when he became a receiver, indicating that he will continue to push hard for a roster spot ... Rookies Kendall Langford and Philip Merling got a lot of work with the first unit on defense again with Porter, Holliday and Anderson not practicing. Second-year linebacker Quentin Moses also benefited from the absence of those three ... Pennington will experience his first two-a-day tomorrow with the Dolphins and both practices (9 a.m. and 5 p.m.) are open to the public.