Miami Dolphins football head coach Jeff Hafley said the team expects to keep two quarterbacks while continuing to resolve other roster decisions ahead of the 53-player deadline. Hafley said Sully will address roster-cut questions in the following days and make the final 53-player decision. The number of tailbacks the team will keep remains under discussion.
Hafley said Will Kacmarek is week to week and will be out that week. He said he and Sully have communicated constantly about the roster, with input from coaches and scouts. Hafley said player evaluations must reflect a full body of work rather than one play.
“No, I mean you can’t judge anybody off of one play, whether it’s good or bad. It’s got to be the full body of work,” Hafley said.
Hafley described the Miami Dolphins as thin from a depth standpoint and said the team must continue developing its players throughout the season. He said that work takes place in meetings, individual periods, practices and walkthroughs. “I think we’re thin still, and I think we got to develop the depth of the team and we’ll do that as the season goes,” Hafley said.
The Miami Dolphins held two joint practices during the preseason, and Hafley said many first-team players received 40 or nearly 40 live-game repetitions through those sessions. He said that workload was likely more than the starters would receive in a preseason game. Hafley said keeping those players healthy enough to play in Vegas was more important than adding preseason snaps.
“We had two joint practices where a lot of our ones got 40 or close to 40 plus reps in real football, which is probably more than you would play your starters in a preseason game,” Hafley said.
The team planned approximately three-and-a-half good practices that week, beginning with a lighter Monday and continuing with an in-season-style Wednesday-through-Friday rehearsal. The Miami Dolphins also planned to continue conditioning, introduce some of the Raiders’ scheme and conduct scout-team and carded work. Hafley said several players were not yet ready to practice, so the team would use jog-through periods while protecting player health.
Hafley said the two weeks before the first regular-season game in Vegas would provide additional preparation. He said the Miami Dolphins are young, have many players with limited NFL experience and are installing new offensive, defensive and special-teams systems. Those factors have led the team to emphasize fundamentals, technique and clear player evaluations.
“Ultimately, it’s his decision with the 53, and I’m going to do everything that I can to help him,” Hafley said of Sully’s roster decision.
Source: Original report