Dave Gray
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It's doo-doo, baby!
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« on: November 10, 2008, 10:54:16 pm » |
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I had the fortune of touring the Dolphins facilities and meeting some Dolphins notables this past weekend. This year, I went with Jim Gray and Sunstroke, both first-timers.
The best part of the weekend (aside from going to the game) is when we get a little Q&A session with some of the people in the organization. This year, it was Former Player/Play by Play radio guy Jimmy Cefalo, President Bryan Wiedmeir, Former Player Keith Simms, and Head Coach Tony Sparano.
Here are the questions I asked:
To Cefalo:
Aside from the game in Denver, Carpenter's kickoffs seem to be high and short. Is that just a lack of leg, or is it by design?
His answer: (paraphrasing)
It's not by design. I don't know what's going on there, but that's one area where things are not working like we'd like. The team knows that that area of the game needs improvement.
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To Weidmeyer:
I remember you saying that the stadium improvements were going to be done in phases. Is that still on?
His answer: (paraphrasing)
It's still on, but we're going to be doing small improvements. We made our big stadium upgrade, but now we're going to work on things like improving concessions upstairs, but we are studying things now, like traffic patterns, seeing where people are gathering in the concourses, etc. A lot of the things we have there now are temporary structures that we can learn from.
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To Sparano:
Is there one player that maybe doesn't start, but that's a pet project or that you have a personal affection for and think that we should watch out for?
His answer: (paraphrasing)
Hmmm.....good question. (long pause) A pet project? ...No. But, there's one guy who does something special in practice every day. Patrick Cobbs. Every day, he does something that's special, and in our meetings, either me or one of the other coaches will say "Did you see what Patrick did?" There are really two guys that come to practice and continually impress us, that's Cobbs and Camarillo.
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So, our seats for the game are interesting. We're sitting in the baseball dugout. For about 10% of the plays, you have the best seat in the house. You can (and some of us did) actually touch the players. Also, as the players come to or from the locker room, you're in the tunnel with them. The rest of the game, you have no perspective, and you have to watch the big screen. It's really cool, but I wouldn't want to do it every game.
Because of what Sparano said about Cobbs, Jim and I paid special attention to him. Sure enough, he's all over the place. He had a few nice first down catches (for short yardage, but on 3rd down that kept drives alive). He made several special teams tackles, and he laid the key block for Ronnie Brown's TD. I might not have noticed how much he actually helped us win unless I was paying attention. It's not his stats that catch you -- it's that he's contributing and helping us win.
Anyway, after the game, the players went back to the locker room and gave Jim one of his gloves from the game.
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