The Dolphins are holding their rookie minicamp this weekend, but the team's first-year players "will not touch the field at the team's training facility once during those three days," according to Armando Salguero of the MIAMI HERALD. Instead, they "will spend all their time during this minicamp in classroom sessions learning how to be Miami Dolphins." That means they are "going to get schooled on the schemes they're playing, their assignments, and everything football that involves the brain." They are "going to get life labs to help them with nutrition, financial planning, sports science, and dealing with the media." Dolphins coach Adam Gase "wants to combat the rookie wall syndrome that seems to stop some rookies dead in their tracks come late November or December." He also wants to get the rookies "as caught up as possible up mentally as quickly as possible so when they get on the field, there is less hesitation and they play faster" (MIAMIHERALD.com, 5/2). USA TODAY's Nancy Armour noted these type of sessions the Dolphins are offering "have always been part of rookie weekend," but they were "usually crammed into the schedule, often at times when players were so overloaded from everything else that whatever was said may as well have been in Sanskrit for as much impact as it made." However, with the NFL doing away with its Rookie Symposium, the "responsibility for helping players adjust to their Alice in Wonderland-like existence now falls even heavier on each team." Gase and the Dolphins "want to make sure they’re doing it right." One weekend’s worth of practice "isn’t going to make any rookie markedly better, but a weekend without it just might" (USATODAY.com, 5/3).
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX: ESPN's Jeff Saturday said he liked the Dolphins' idea, as the players have been "traveling all over the country" in the weeks leading up to the Draft. He said, "All their focus is on combine-specific drills, when the reality is when you walk on the field, those drills don’t help you a single bit. … They went through an entire season, through bowl games, then they’ve done all this training.” Saturday said the program will be helpful “to let these guys’ bodies rest and to help them mentally acclimate to the game.” But he did say he felt it was "important to get the guys on the field even in a walk through." Saturday: "That would be the one thing I would ask if I was a player, just to let me do a walk through so … when I do have pads on, I am ready to let it rip” (“SportsCenter, ESPN, 5/4).
