Edds Potentially Done for Year, Pennington, More Fins Notes…

A lot has happened through five days of camp with players coming from out of no where to make impacts, the new acquisitions impressing early on and unfortunately, now, some injury news. Yesterday was the first practice that was completely closed off, held in the bubble at 5 PM, apparently young ILB AJ Edds out of Iowa now fears he tore he ACL in last night’s practice. The team will evaluate the injury and most likely announce the news sometime in the next 24 hours, but typically these reports on knee injuries are pretty accurate.

Update: Tony Sparano has confirmed that AJ Edds did indeed blow out his ACL and will be lost for the season. He will be placed on IR and now JD Folsom and Austin Spitler have a greater opportunity to make the team.

According to Mike Bernardino of the Sun Sentinel:

"Edds, a fourth-round draft pick out of Iowa, suffered the injury during Monday afternoon’s practice at the team’s indoor facility. Edds was removed from drills early on, but was able to return after being fitted with a protective sleeve.Shortly after, however, Edds was sidelined for the remainder of practice and trainers placed a large ice bag on the knee. He spent the last part of practice standing on the sideline and watching."

Edds looked to factor into the ILB battle along with Channing Crowder and Tim Dobbins, primarily drafted to be a coverage specialist, Miami may now have to adjust its plans on passing downs if Edds is indeed injured. Moreso, you have to feel for the young man, who ends up facing a serious setback before ever even getting a chance to suit up and play in a preseason game.

Edds comes out of college with high marks for character and work ethic, so regardless of the severity of the injury you can rest assured he’ll fight back from it. Still, you hate to see a promising young player injured so early in his career. Hopefully this is as badly as the injury bug bites Miami this pre-season, fingers crossed. Let’s move on to some other items…

Chad Pennington

If you had an opportunity to catch Omar Kelly’s segment on the Sid Rosenberg radio show yesterday, you probably heard him break down the quarterback position in a mind-boggling way. According to Omar Kelly, Chad Pennington is the best quarterback in Miami right now.

How can that be? Well according to Kelly, Chad Henne looks solid, but he should as he gets to sling the ball to the dominant Brandon Marshall. Chad Pennington has supposedly been making guys on the third team look like all-pros. In fact, by contrast, Kelly said when Pat White runs the third team there’s no point in even watching, when Pennington runs it they look impressive. Same players, same system, night and day.

Now most people expected Pennington to enter camp on the PUP list. A lot had been made of how well his surgically repaired shoulder would hold up through camp. And to the coaching staff’s credit, Pennington has seen a much lighter workload than say, Chad Henne. But Omar Kelly thinks that may be for a different reason, the coaches don’t want to see too much of Pennington in fear of tainting their opinions.

The most interesting quote from the interview came when Kelly opined:

"“If you put a gun to my head and asked me who the best quarterback for us was right now. Not worrying about the future or who was going to stay healthy, who gives us the chance to win the most games, I think it’s Chad Pennington.”"

WHAT!?! Actually, that doesn’t shock me. When you consider all the factors including injury history, the future, etc… Henne is the easy choice. But I find it interesting that after watching all of Miami’s practices thus far that Omar Kelly truly believes Chad Pennington is still the best QB right now. It’s an opinion, but here at PhinPhanatic, we regard Omar’s opinions with a high degree of credibility.

So would Miami be better off with Chad Pennington starting? It’s a crazy question, it certainly hasn’t been asked much. Now instantly there will be ten people commenting that this is a stupid conversation, and Pennington has a noodle arm, etc… But Pennington is also the most accurate QB ever. Last year Henne threw 14 picks, the year before the entire Dolphins offense under Pennington committed just 14 turnovers total. I don’t think arm strength would prevent Pennington from connecting with Brandon Marshall many, many times. Kyle Orton is half the QB Pennington is and he had no problem last year (even with an unenthusiastic Marshall).

Here’s my question, it’s not whether Miami would be better off or should start Pennington. My question is whether that was ever even a possibility. If Pennington really is the best QB in Dolphins camp right now as Omar Kelly claims, does he even have a shot to win the starting job? And is Miami better off for that or not? Interesting discussion yesterday between Omar and Sid Rosenburg on that topic though…

Nolan Carroll

I’ve been high on Nolan Carroll since he showed up. Partially because as an FSU alumnus I’m an ACC guy too, but partially because he reminds me of Will Poole 2.0. Poole was a corner out of USC with big potential, he missed most of his senior season with an injury, dropped down to the late rounds and I thought he would be a steal. Well he ended up just being injury prone, and maybe I just kind of sub-consciously want Carroll to redeem Poole for me, but I think Nolan Carroll is going to be good for Miami for a long time.

Already he’s making waves in practice, drawing praise for his instincts and work ethic as well as showing up on film with a pick-6 against Tyler Thigpen and the second team offense the other day. Every year the watch seems to be on for who will beat out Jason Allen. I’m calling it right here and now, it’s going to be Nolan Carroll.

Saving Money

We’ll just end with this, Ryan Matthews signed a deal over the weeked worth around 25 million dollars with 15 mil in guaranteed money. This is significant because Miami traded that pick to San Diego in order to drop down in the first and pick up a second rounder. Essentially Miami ended up grabbing Koa Misi and Jared Odrick, two potential starters, and signing them, combined, for less money than what the 14th pick of the draft got. For all the bashing people do about the trifecta missing on the Pat White pick or the Pat Turner pick, here’s a little praise. Miami turned the 14th pick in the first round into two starters while recouping a 2nd they had given up for Brandon Marshall and saving a few million dollars. Not bad.

The fins continue camp today. We’ll have updates throughout. Check back often and follow us on Twitter.