The Dolphins released a statement cancelling Thursday’s joint practice with the Eagles out what they called “an abundance of caution” regarding a non-COVID illness. A report from Mike Garafolo of NFL Media offers more details about the nature of that illness. Garafolo reports that a stomach bug has been making its way through the Dolphins and that a number of players were sick and vomiting overnight. The Dolphins will be meeting virtually in hopes that keeping everyone distanced will keep the illness from spreading any further. The Eagles will practice on their own. A game is scheduled between the two teams on Saturday and the plan is for that game to proceed as scheduled, although further spread of the stomach issues could lead to a reconsideration.
Oof, that's a big deal. Hopefully it runs its course and IR isn't getting loaded up for the start of the season.
Coach said it's a huge deal because there are a lot of decisions to be made and between practice and Saturday's game, it's the biggest weekend of a lot of guys' lives. Missing a practice can affect final roster composition.
I never understood why the rosters have to be so small. If you have cap room keep as many as you can. I also never understood why you have to have some players sit out even though they're on the roster. If they are on the roster then they should be eligible to play.
Very true- I was just thinking about the final roster, not the 35-40 who are playing for their lives right now. So it's a huge deal all-around for our existing roster. Hopefully they got it contained fast enough so it's not team-wide. Thinking this through, it may also change our game plan for this weekend. Maybe starters don't even dress and they just let fringe players fight it out all night. I'd keep Tua, X, Waddle, etc. as far away from this as I could for as long as possible.
I looked for a source and couldn't find anything except for a random post on a 'Canes forum. Nothing even close to official yet, so crossing my fingers that this is a lousy rumor.
“We couldn’t, in good conscience, just move forward and try to limit reps in practice,” McDaniel said. “We just wanted to make sure that — really, it all comes down to wanting to be able to fully play the preseason game as planned. So the best way to do that with the unknowns were to just keep everyone away from each other because clearly it’s some sort of contagious. But it appears to be the normal symptoms that I’ll allow you to detail if you’d like of stomach bugs.” He said that the illness is affecting “more than a couple players,” but “not half the team by any stretch.” “I didn’t want to have half the team drained out from a stomach bug, fight through the heat and then have depleted performance in the preseason game because for a lot of guys, it’s the most important game of their career, and I hold a strong amount of value to that and didn’t want to compromise that in any way,” McDaniel said. It’s a smart play. It’s the only play. Even if the major symptoms are gone in 24 hours, it takes at least another 24 hours to begin to feel normal again. The Dolphins play the Eagles on Saturday night, in the preseason finale for both teams.
