QB’s Highlight Miami Dolphins Mini-Camp

The Miami Dolphins have concluded their short mini-camp and the quarterbacks garnered all the attention.  Outside anyone named Ocho of course.  The three day camp stood not to slot the three QB’s plus Pat Devlin into “strings” but instead to get the team warmed up to the new system.  Mini-camps are more about familiarization with the playbooks, conditioning, and timing.  It’s far less about locking down starters.

Forget the defensive side of the ball.  Seriously.  Without pads and contact the entire camp is geared towards knowing where to be in what situation and how to recognize and react.  The real fun is on the offensive side of the ball.  The Oline goes through the motions, sorry Jake Long, but really, your not going to stop a defender from sacking your QB…even hypothetically sacking him.

When it comes to these types of mini-camps, the passing game is where the excitement is.  From running backs out of the back-field and tight end curls to the deep out and fly.  It’s all about routes, timing, and most of all catching.  The thing is, WR’s can’t do it alone.  Someone needs to throw them the ball.  For the first time in a very long time, it appears the Dolphins will have a real QB competition come training camp.  That should only make the offense better.

Long time veteran David Garrard is showing no ill effects of his missed season due to injury and Matt Moore appears to be the same take charge QB he was last year when he took over for Chad Henne.  Both QB’s received reps with the first team offense and both will go into TC a close one/two.  Ryan Tannehill, the Dolphins future, took first team reps on day three but is likely going to remain the number 3 QB on the roster.

All three QB’s still have a lot of work to do getting their timing down with the receivers, running backs, and TE’s, to say nothing about the timing when defenders are in their face.  Training camp is for that.  I will be honest, I don’t follow mini-camps all that close outside of injuries.  No player wins a starting job or holds a starting job in mini-camps.  They do get stronger, faster, and well conditioned, and of course they get hands on instructions from the coaches.  I tend to look more at certain positions and how the camps will benefit those players trying to make the team better.

This year, clearly, it’s the QB’s and WR’s.  The Dolphins have closed up this past weeks camp but another month and a half we will be talking about serious position battles.  For now, it’s just nice to see a QB competition that has three players capable of competing.