Will the Miami Dolphins mini-camp standouts fall by the wayside in camp?
There is a shortlist of players that the Miami Dolphins beat writers and other pundits hold up as standouts during the mini-camp. Robert Foster WR, Hunter Long TE, and former standout WR Albert Wilson to start off on offense. I will circle back to defense.
Minicamp Had no tackling or most other forms of contact between most players. When the regular camp opens in about a month, that all changes when the pads come on.
So the question is, can most, or even some of the players that made the consensus of playing well during the period of OTAs and mini-camps that just past keep it going when it opens up again?
Look at what offensive lineman Jesse Davis said about practicing without pads back on June 17:
"“It’s mostly passes. There’s not a lot of runs. It’s not like fitting up or anything. You kind of get in your sets and you get in your handwork. It’s more technique-based and more fundamentally with that. I’m just trying to get myself to quiet my feet down, keep my hands tight; and I think that everybody does that on the o-line too. We’re just trying to work the same thing. It’s not as easy as it sounds but that’s kind of the thing – you go into these camps trying to work.” Jesse Davis"
He states It’s mostly handwork, techniques, and fundamentals along the o-line (he spoke for others) he also brings up; it was mostly passing plays during mini-camp, which is probably why we had standouts on offense with a few WR’s and a TE. It seems the defense gets the upper hand at most of the organized team activities in general.
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With mostly passing plays during these past practices without pads on, we will probably be seeing more running plays when the pads come on. It will most likely be harder for Foster, Wilson, and Long to keep up the level they did when the focus will be run. They will be shifting some of their roles to blocking, to help with running plays.
It would be nice to see all of these players keep up the high performance into camp, but that’s unlikely.
If I had to guess it would be a player on defense if we see the same level of output.
Those defensive players are Noah Igbinoghene CB and LB Jaelan Phillips.
With Xavien Howard’s holdout, this was a perfect opportunity for Igbinoghene. Who knows how that situation will shake out by the time camp starts up again.
With all the passing we had some interceptions and otherwise nice plays from Igbinoghene. One play during mini-camp stands out for me. It was when Phillips crashed the offensive line knocking down linemen-like bowling pins as he went. As already stated there was supposed to be no contact. Head coach Brian Flores made Phillips run a lap right after that play.
This wasn’t meant as a slight to any of these players. It is just more likely that other players will be seen as standouts.
Keeping note on which players do well during practices can be a fun exercise, seeing if any of those players keep it going even more so. I left some players off, and just streamlined it into the ones I had heard about the most from the best consensus.