Back To Practice…Pennington Will Get To Work

There is no doubt a lot going on today with the Miami Dolphins which makes it hard to cover everything, so keep scrolling the front page for more of today’s blogs.  There is some good stuff down there.

First the bad news.  LB Kelvin Smith will likely be done for the year with a serious knee injury, an injury settlement is likely now as Smith would not have made this roster.

According to HC Tony Sparano, Joey Porter suffered a back injury in practice which is why he didn’t play.

LB Charlie Anderson who was playing well suffered a hamstring injury that is being reported as worse than Vonnie Holiday’s.  Something to keep an eye on as Anderson was slated to be one of the starters.  He should be o.k. but, hamstrings can be fickle.

Now, the Dolphins are not being praised by their HC for playing an o.k. game and Sparano is going to let them know about it at practice today.  The special teams gave up too many yards according to the HC, and he is livid over the dropped passes and receiver play.  Not to mention the 9 penalties the team had…reminds of Shula and how he used to fume over penalties.

Chad Pennington will get his first practice in as a Miami Dolphin and indications are that he will get the majority of the snaps in preparation for this weeks game against the Jaguars.  Pennington has to learn a new playbook and new signals but he should get it down pretty quick.  While Pennington gets his first look, it will be interesting to see how he compares in practice to the others, and more importantly who is left out of the rotations.

There is a case to be made for John Beck remaining on the team and that is simply that if he improves would have more trade value than Josh McCown who as a journeyman has none.  Beck is a project no doubt, but he is still raw.

Chad Henne, Jake Long, and Donald Thomas all received some props from the Rookie head coach but that won’t win them starting jobs…o.k. it will for Long and Thomas.

With the team starting prep work on the Jags, the question may become whether or not the Phins are going to start looking at available wide-receivers.  Yes, the play was that bad at times.  GM Jeff Ireland commented before TC that the team was looking at other WR’s.  Maybe they find a way to make a trade, because frankly, there isn’t much on the free agent market to get you happy.