Coach Tony Sparano said he was "pleasantly surprised" by Henne, and reiterated Henne, Josh McCown and John Beck will have a "quarterback competition" when training camp opens. Whoever gets it done will be the starter. So basically, there are no favorites. Jake Long held down the left tackle spot (surprise, surprise), and Shawn Murphy played next to him at right guard during this rookie camp. Donald Thomas held down the first team left guard spot. Sparano stressed he's going to start the "best five," on the offensive line, and plans to do that at every position. Phillip Merling participated in all of practice despite his sport hernia, said he's fine and could go "all out" if he needed to. He was warned by the coaches if he started to experience any pain to ease up, but didn't. However, he looked mighty slow to me, and it better be his injury holding him back or else the Dolphins might be looking at a future nose tackle. He needs to be explosive coming off the end, and right now he doesn't have it. But it is day 1, and he is battling a serious injury. I'm honestly surprised he was allowed to participate. And for the record, he's bigger than I expected him to be. link to rest of story http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/sports_football_dolphins/2008/05/post-practice-q.html
Phillip Merling participated in all of practice despite his sport hernia, said he's fine and could go "all out" if he needed to. He was warned by the coaches if he started to experience any pain to ease up, but didn't. However, he looked mighty slow to me, and it better be his injury holding him back or else the Dolphins might be looking at a future nose tackle. He needs to be explosive coming off the end, and right now he doesn't have it. But it is day 1, and he is battling a serious injury. I'm honestly surprised he was allowed to participate. And for the record, he's bigger than I expected him to be. i just hope it's the injury thats slowing him down
I would think so. And even when he's fully recovered, he's still not going to be full speed for at least another couple of weeks beyond that. He should be at full capacity by game 2 at the latest, so I wouldn't worry too much about his speed or quickness right now. If he's still this way during the pre-season games, I would start to wonder what's up then.
The last photos of Merlin that I saw you can tell he was not in very good shape due to the surgery, and if it were me, I would not have let him practice at all simply because there should not be room for excuses, either you perform or you do not perform, the half step of "yeah but" is a bad habit to start for the guy already.
As long as he was just going through the motions and engaging in the mental aspects of the drills, I don't think it's a problem. He definitely shouldn't be going full or even half speed at anything, and absolutely no contact. If he is, it's his own fault if he re-injures himself, as the coaching staff has already told him to take it easy. The more he's out there learning and doing, the less he's going to have to catch up on when his body fully heals.
