Dolphins Channel Their Inner Warrior With Shield

The Miami Dolphins have a large shield in the locker room. What does it mean? To the players it means leaving it on the field for your team. Protecting the man next to you and it’s something that the Dolphins have been lacking for a few years now.

In 2012 the Miami Dolphins were on HBO’s Hard Knocks and one episode showed the lack of team awareness where Joe Philbin called his players out for not helping each other off the turf. It’s the little things sometimes that players pay not attention to and can make a world of difference. The locker room is not segregated by position but instead players are spread across the room meaning defensive players are mixed next to offensive players and lineman may be sitting next to a cornerback or kicker and and a safety might be sitting next to a quarterback or running back.

All in the name of team.

This season the Dolphins are drilling that into their players and it’s no surprise given the fallout the team took from last  years in house scandal with Jonathan Martin.

On Sunday the Dolphins players met to celebrate their 53 man roster and were given T-shirts by their position coaches that bare the shield and the words “ONE TEAM, ONE FIGHT, WIN THE DAY.” Head coach Joe Philbin told members of the local media that the player came up with the slogan. The shirt also has the words “smart, sound, tough” written in between the bolder statements. While the players came up with the slogans it was the coaches that came up with the idea of the shield.

"“The players took time on Sunday as a football team to kind of celebrate the 53 guys that made the roster and their position coaches gave them their T-shirts,” Philbin said. “The players kind of came up with that. As in a lot of things in life, there’s certain rituals and symbols. We wanted to kind of make it a special occasion for them, and the shield is kind of the symbol of everybody together, one team.”"

To the players it’s a rally point. Daryn College the teams new left guard says it’s a reminder that the season starts there, in the locker room. He calls it their base. Brent Grimes wants the shield in his home and Matt Moore says “It’s the spirit of the warrior”.

Regardless of what the shield means to each player it’s becoming obvious that it is building the players closer to that team mentality and that was the purpose to begin with. If the Dolphins were smart they would move the  shield to Sun-Life Stadium for Sunday’s game. Maybe the Dolphins need to go the college route and hit the shield on their way to the tunnel. At this point, anything is worth trying and continuing if it works. If the Dolphins players are coming together as a team, then the shield is doing what it was intended to do.