Three Up & Three Down From My First Week At Miami Dolphins Training Camp

The Miami Dolphins’ first week of training camp under Jeff Hafley is in the books. Consider me a fan. Hafley’s a very matter of fact presence with a sincerity about him that’s hard to miss. If he doesn’t work out in Miami, it won’t be because of his abilities to lead, galvanize, and instruct.

His team has had a pretty fair share of back and forth exchanges — and the structure of his practices is fueling this team with a TON of time on task together. We’re talking 45 minutes of team periods each and every day. And, today, the pads come on.

I don’t like doing over-reactive content off of four practices with no pads. But I do think it’s worth acknowledging a few players I was expecting differently from, for better or for worse. Here’s three players moving up or down versus my expectations as we transition into pads.

Wright’s looked like he’s had a lot more confidence and the same amount of juice as you’d expect from a 4.3 guy. So when you take what looks like a confident version of Wright and parlay it with what Hafley said about him last week, you can consider me officially on notice.

”Fast, explosive. When he hits it and gets vertical he can really go. I think he's a good scheme fit. I love the way he practices. I love the way he finishes,” said Hafley of Wright’s skill set. “He's compact. He's strong. He's a hard guy to tackle and excited to see him in live settings. That will be fun.”

That starts today.

Sims kind of feels like the little engine that could in the tight end room. Dulcich is more explosive. Kacmarek is more powerful. Sims just kind of shows up and makes big catches every day. He’s been a player who Malik Willis seems to trust with throws to the fringes of his catch radius, too.

His best play was an extended, fingertips grab in the back corner of the end zone for a gorgeous hook up with Willis in the red zone. They seem to have got something here.

I had developed a hope throughout the offseason that Gordon II would emerge as a renewed player. He’s said he’s been working on keeping his pads down this offseason, so hopefully we’ll see that starting today.

But he’s just not had the same gear as the top two backs. And he’s put the ball on the ground twice — which is an ominous start for a second-year player looking to seize the role of the hammer in the backfield.

And, as a completely unrelated note that’s not Ollie’s fault at all, one of his runs kicked off the pissing contest of the century on social media about beat reporters versus content creators once again. If you don’t know, don’t ask. I beg you. So I’m subconsciously holding that against him for now, too!

I was pumped when this signing was announced last week. And I’d like to be fair and give Ferrell some time to settle in. It’s hard to forget he missed all of OTAs and mini-camp versus the rest of these guys.

But he kind of feels like a guy who is behind — despite being the most experienced guy in the room. The Dolphins have just two EDGE defenders with more than 5 years of league experience: Uche and Ferrell. But Clelin’s been quiet thus far and I was hoping for him to be a stabilizing signing for the rotation. But we’ll see.

Dodson might be on the ropes, gang. Rookie Jacob Rodriguez is making impact plays, while Dodson had his one big play opportunity through four practices slip through his fingertips. He dropped a pick late last week.

I’m not at liberty to tell you who is lining up with Brooks more often — that’s not in alignment with the team and league reporting policy. But Dodson’s got to turn up.