New practice format has advantages

Teams such as the New England Patriots, New York Giants and Green Bay Packers have the luxury of having franchise quarterbacks, which coincides with not having to design practices where multiple QB’s have to share repetitions. Unfortunately for phins news fans, our team does not have this advantage during training camp. Not only is there a QB competition, but unlike most competitions where there are two players battling it out, the phins are in the unique situation of having 3 players compete for the starting role. The immediate disadvantage that this competition produces is that each QB is taking away valuable reps from the other. So if a team normally runs 75 live plays, instead of one player getting all 75 reps, the Dolphins have 3 players each getting around 25 reps.

Phins news fans will be happy to hear that Joe Philbin has realized this dilemma, and has designed a creative way to address it. To begin training camp Philbin has decided to split the field in half and run two practices simultaneously, with the starting unit on one half and the back ups on the other half. So instead of the typical 75-80 live practice reps that a normal team would have, the Dolphins are averaging 150-160 reps per practice. This outside of the box strategy was recommended by offensive coordinator Mike Sherman who applied this technique during his 4 year tenure as head coach at Texas A&M. I don’t know what the rest of phins news nation thinks, but Jimmy Bourbon loves that the coaching staff is already taking the initiate to think outside of the box to handle issues that create disadvantages for the team. It is promising, because the coaching staff appears to have the wherewithal to make adjustments when needed. So there should be no reason that they can’t apply this use of their medulla oblongata to make necessary in game adjustments when situations arise.

Also besides the QB’s, this enables younger players to get more reps as well, which as the old saying goes “practice makes perfect.” The coaching staff is designing practices to be more efficient, and in the end not only are the players working harder, but they are working smarter. This will also add to keeping the players in better physical condition, which was clearly lacking in Miami’s first game against the Pats last year, where many players were bent over with hands on their knees looking like cardiac arrest patients.

NFL wagering fans could be surprised to see a well conditioned in sync Miami team when the first week of the season starts. If that optimistic prediction comes to fruition, then this unique practice format will be one of the little things that makes a big difference.