August 13th Training Camp Reports

Three more to go until the team closes practice to the fans and media. Looks like we’ll be outside today, but we’ve been getting thunderstorms almost every day around 2 p.m., so I’m not holding my breath.

Expect to see plenty of Chad Henne-ton today, and probably not too much of Josh McCown or John Beck. And let’s see if Joey Porter’s balky back will let him participate in two practices in a row.

Feel free to post any questions or comments, and I’ll try to address them in the posts.

Enjoy practice!

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2:31

Hey gang, a few quick updates before practice gets going:

• Shorts and shells today.
• Injury situation is the same as yesterday. Vonnie Holliday (hamstring) and Michael Lehan (ankle) are sitting out. Joey Porter (back) is practicing. Charlie Anderson (hamstring) is MIA.
• Holliday and Lehan are taking turns on one of those speed skating things. They have bags wrapped around their feet, and are gliding back and forth on the slick white board. Looks like a lot of fun. Holliday has better balance than Lehan.
• All four quarterbacks are participating and individual drills. The 7 on 7 and full team drills are the real barometer, though.
• Nice one-handed catch by Andre Goodman during interception drills. And Jason Allen catches the ball like a wide receiver. Very smooth. The position coach that is throwing all these 35-yarders is going to need plenty of Advil tonight.
• On the other side of the coin, Channing Crowder drops an interception.
• The quarterbacks start working with the receivers. Lining up alongside First Teamers Ted Ginn and Derek Hagan is rookie Davone Bess, who by all accounts has had a great training camp.

That’s it for now. Back soon.

3:01

Hey guys, sorry about the delay. Some technical problems at the Palm Beach Post world headquarters.

Here are the goods:

11-on-11 team drills

• Pennington looks a little rusty. He throws high to Hagan, broken up by Will Allen, and then throws a slant a little bit behind Ernest Wilford, which he drops.
• Pennington comes back with a deep sideline route to Camarillo. Beautiful job by Camarillo to jump up over Andre Goodman and come down with the ball.
• Pennington ends with a dump-off to Ricky, a playaction roll-out screen to Ricky and a slant to Davone Bess. Nice finger-tip catch.
• Henne’s up. He overthrows Hagan, who was wide open deep down the field.
• Henne finds Patrick Cobbs in the flat after checking down his other receivers. Nice job by Cobbs to scoot past Channing Crowder.
• He throws a playaction roll-out out of bounds, a slant to Jayson Foster, and a slant to Camarillo. Great diving catch by Camarillo. This guy has looked really sharp in camp. Edgar and I would be shocked if he doesn’t make the team.
• They break out into punt drills. Brandon Fields starts from his own end zone and does some quick punts. They slowly trickle down the field until they are practicing coffin corners.
• Really nice job by Patrick Cobbs on punt coverage. Bess waives for the fair catch but lets it drop, and Cobbs downs the ball on about the 1-foot line.

They break out into more 11-on-11 drills. As I’m typing this, Edgar says McCown is finally getting some snaps.

More in a bit.

3:30

Hey guys, I realize you can’t read this in real time. I suggest turning back your clocks before you read this, so we can pretend like we didn’t have any technical issues.

• Team drills, 11-on-11. Beck and McCown each take snaps.
• Beck had a real nice deep pass to David Kircus, but also a couple of incompletions and a pass that was tipped at the line.
• McCown looked pretty good. He completed three short passes — a curl to Camarillo, and out to Davone Bess.
• But McCown also struggled a bit on the deep ball. He threw a couple of ducks, and Will Allen comes down with the interception on the second one.
• Pennington struggled a bit today. He missed on his first four throws and finished 1-of-5. Andre Goodman also let Pennington get away with a bad throw, dropping an interception.
• Henne completes a square-in to Ginn, real nice sliding catch by Teddy G. Then he throws over Boomer Grigsby’s head on an out pattern in the flat.
• Kickoff drills. Dan Carpenter is booming them down between the 5 and the goal line every time. He kicks the ball really high, and puts a nice little draw on it. Wish I could get my 9 iron to look like that.
• Rotation of special teams drills: punt blocks, fair catches, long field goals, etc.
• Punt block drills. Brandon Fields gets it off every time.
• Carpenter lines up for a 60-yarder, but with no defense and no snap. John Denney is holding the ball, and Carpenter essentially gets a free kick. His kick has PLENTY of distance, but goes wide left. That kick could’ve reached the goalpost from 75 yards.

That’s it for now. Thanks for your patience. Gotta talk to players soon, so the last update will probably come in an hour.

4:34

A few more updates to end the day:

• Pennington worked with all three units in 11-on-11 drills. He began on his own 40, and slowly marched down the field.
• Pennington throws a quick out to Sean Ryan and misses Davone Bess on a deep out.
• A little miscommunication between Pennington and and Wilford. Pennington throws a deep out, Wilford runs a curl.
• Kendall Langford is running with the 3’s, by the way.
• Now they’re in the Red Zone. After a Jalen Parmele run up the middle, Pennington throws to Sean Ryan in the end zone. Ryan runs a flag route and is wide open in the corner. The throw is right there ….. and it goes off Ryan’s hands, right to Courtney Bryan, who takes it 108 yards the other way. Ryan, clearly upset with himself, chased Bryan all the way down the field.
• Pennington scrambles into the end zone, and his final pass of the day is an interception to Will Billingsley on a fade to Derek Hagan. Way underthrown.

Here are some final passing numbers for the two Chads. It ain’t pretty:

Pennington: 6 for 21 with two interceptions.

Henne: 7 for 15

That’s 13 for 36, combined. Yuck. But tomorrow is another day.

Source

Josh McCown and John Beck had the best day of Miami’s four quarterbacks in Wednesday’s practice because, well, they took only a handful of snaps in team drills while Chad Pennington and Chad Henne took the 36 between them and stunk struggled.

Pennington was 6 of 21 with zero touchdowns and two interceptions during the entirety of the team drills, which were split up into three parts. Pennington and the starting receivers were not always on the same page but he was also victimized by some horrible happenstance.

On one sure TD pass he hit TE Sean Ryan in the hands and the guy not only drops the pass, he drops it into the hands of Joey Thomas for an INT. Pennington’s second INT was legit as Will Billingsley simply plucked a weak pass in the corner of the end zone out of the air. Derek Hagan, by the way, didn’t exactly defend well, which is what he’s called to do when he doesn’t have a chance to catch it himself.

Pennington did have the nicest completion of the day — a 40-yard-plus connection with Greg Camarillo. Camarillo also had a leaping grab of a Henne pass across the middle later in the practice so he had a good day.

Henne was not so good either. He completed 7 of 15 passes without a TD nor an INT. Henne also took a sack.

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An item in profootballtalk.com today confirms an item on this blog from Saturday that Chad Pennington’s deal could be worth $11.5 million but only if the guy takes Miami to the Super Bowl and he wins the MVP. The real value of the deal is more like $8 million. He got $500,000 to sign last week.

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It was surprising to see but only hours after coach Tony Sparano said he’s seeing improvement from Ernest Wilford in practices, I see him fall another notch in the ever-changing depth chart.

While we all know Wilford dropped from starter to third receiver last week behind Ted Ginn and Derek Hagan, today while the team worked in three-receiver sets, he wasn’t one of the three receivers. Rookie Davone Bess, Ginn and Hagan were the three WRs working with the starters. Wilford was working with the second group. Interesting.

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The Dolphins want to find a place for RB Patrick Cobbs on this team so don’t be surprised to see him on kick returns Saturday versus Jacksonville.

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Quickie Jake Long update: Good news. Nothing to report. He doesn’t give up sacks, he doesn’t jump offsides. Does he have work to do? Yes, on his technique. But he’s never overmatched.

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