Tuesday Morning Notes

The Dolphins had a double session day on Monday and will follow that up with a single practice later on today at 2 pm.  Below are just some thoughts/notes for you to ponder to start the day.

BECK IMPROVING?
This is a big week for John Beck, believe it or not.  It's as big of a week for him as it possibly can be considering it's just the 2nd week of practice in training camp.  But now is the time for him to come out of his camp-long slump and begin to play like he knows he is capable of.  It's time for Beck to make his case as to why he should start Saturday's preseason opener against the Buccaneers.

And I think he knows this, too.

John had his best day of practice today.  And now he has pulled into a tie with both Josh McCown and Chad Henne in the "having a very good day" competition.  Each have had one, by most accounts.  Today John made plays down the field - something he hasn't done yet in camp.  He seems to have put more trust in both his instincts and abilities as well as in the receivers' abilities.  Less thinking and more trusting.  And it's this kind of performance that could possibly be used to spring board his chances in the QB competition.

If you simply look at the stats, though, you won't  be overly impressed.  He threw one touchdown pass and one interception over the course of Monday's 2 practices.  However, you need to consider that Beck had 3 dropped passes that also would have resulted in touchdowns.  And can you imagine what the media would be saying if John had thrown 4 TDs in one practice?

But it goes beyond the stats.  For the first time, we read about John making great throws.  Ben Volin described two of John's throws this way:

[John] comes back with a beautiful throw to David Martin over the middle, threading it between two defenders.

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Nice improvisation by Beck on a broken play. He scrambles out of the pocket, waives for Jalen Parmele to break his route and streak to the end zone, lobs a perfect pass to Parmele, he’s wide open in the end zone …. and he drops it. D’oh.

Beck's performance was even enough to impress Omar Kelly - who isn't exactly a pro-Beck guy.

But, again, it's just one day.  But what hopefully will come out of today's improved performance from John is confidence.  Hopefully Beck has now shaken off most of the rust from the couple of weeks off before camp and can relax and just play some ball.  So tune in tomorrow for the next edition of "As the QBs Turn."

FIRST DEPTH CHART IS RELEASED
As mandated by league rules, the Dolphins have released their first depth chart of the 2008 season.  But, really, it's all worthless.  Even Tony Sparano says that, stating:

"It's something that we had to produce and put out there, so we had to put it out there. That depth chart won't be the same this afternoon, never mind tomorrow, so it's going to change every single day."

Some of the things that really show how irrelevant it is?  Trey Darilek is listed as the starting RG despite the fact that Donald Thomas has been working as the starting RG for the longest of any of the lineman battling for that job.  Ernest Wilford is shown as the starting WR opposite Ted Ginn despite spending Monday working with the 2nd team while Derek Hagan worked with the 1st.  Rookie Kendall Langford is shown as a 3rd teamer on the chart despite seeing extensive work with the 2nd.

So is it even worth discussing?  Possibly.  It does show Davone Bess as a 3rd team WR, along with David Kircus, only behind Ginn, Hagan, Wilford, and Greg Camarillo.  So Bess could be in position to win that 5th WR job as an undrafted free agent.  It also shows Anthony Fasano unseating last year's starter David Martin at TE, despite Fasano missing all of the off-season work due to an injury.  So while I think there could a few things to take from this first depth chart, the only things we know for sure are that John Denney is the unquestioned long snapper and Brandon Fields is the unquestioned punter.

ROTH GETTING OLB EXPERIENCE
Last week it was Vonnie Holliday.  This week it's Matt Roth getting some work at the outside linebacker position.  He's getting looked at as the strongside linebacker in Miami's 3-4 defense, with Joey Porter moving over to the weakside.  The strongside is the more "run-stopping oriented" position of the two, while the weakside is more the "pass-rushing oriented" position vacated by Jason Taylor.

Again, it's just an experiment right now.  So I wouldn't read too much into it.  But it does show that this coaching staff is willing to get creative and really try new things to help generate a pass rush to replace Jason Taylor.  Perhaps this could be a look in passing situations, with Porter moving to the weakside to rush the passer.  But that will depend on how well Roth does dropping into coverage.

I'll be interested to see if the Dolphins try out some of these new looks in the preseason opener.

That's all for now.  One practice tomorrow at 2 pm.

Thoughts below...