All it takes is one look at the clocks on the wall inside the locker room to remind the Miami Dolphins that play time is over and it’s time to get down to business.

The bright red digits displayed just five days remaining until Miami opens the 2011 regular season against the New England Patriots at Sun Life Stadium. So it was easy to understand why today’s practice had a different and more intense feel to it, and the players are anxious to face the “live bullets” as outside linebacker Cameron Wake described the Patriots.

“This is the real deal and there’s an expression we say around here, ‘It just got real.’ We walked in this locker room and we crossed that line and it’s real bullets,” Wake said. “It’s no more first team take a break and play half a game with camp bodies, none of that. This is the Miami Dolphins’ 53 and we’re going out there and it counts.”

Add in the fact the Dolphins are facing an opponent within the AFC East division and their adrenaline was raised even more. That is why the competitive fires at practice burned brighter, much to Head Coach Tony Sparano’s pleasure.

“It was a lot better today than it was Sunday or Monday,” Sparano said. “Sunday or Monday you don’t kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. It becomes a long week and I’ve cautioned my team against allowing the week to get too long, so we wanted to break the monotony with a day off here yesterday and a couple of days worth of work before that. … We were able to get at it today and the enthusiasm was real good.”

In addition to the rookies on both sides of the ball actively awaiting their chance to play a meaningful NFL game for the first time, some of Miami’s long tenured veterans are equally as excited. Those experienced guys can be found more easily on defense right now.

Veteran strong safety Yeremiah Bell holds the distinction of being the oldest current Dolphin in terms of consecutive seasons with this being his eighth. His eyes still lit up at the sight of that clock ticking down closer to game day.

“You get to the start of camp and that’s exciting, but as you get going through camp you’re just worried about that first game,” said Bell, who is looking for his fourth straight season of 100 or more tackles. “So now that we’re finally here I think guys are ready, guys are very excited about it and we’re ready to go out and show what we can do.”

Sparano cracked a smile during his press conference when he was asked what the pros and cons were to opening the season on Monday night instead of Sunday. The 136-day lockout certainly impacted his answer.

“In a lockout year there’s tremendous pros,” he said with a laugh. “My buddy in New Orleans (Sean Payton) opens up on Thursday and we all started training camp at the same time. We gained an extra day here and we were able to handle the Thursday game a little differently knowing we had an extra day down the road.”

Of course that means the team can expect even more intense practices tomorrow, Friday and Saturday, with the end result in their eyes being a stellar performance under the lights on Monday.

INJURY UPDATE: Rookie fullback Charles Clay was the only player not to practice this afternoon as he worked on the side with the trainers. … Sparano also revealed that free safety Chris Clemons, who did not practice Sunday and Monday, has been limited.

NO WORRIES ABOUT LONG’S READINESS: Sparano managed to make it through the entire preseason without inserting Pro Bowl left tackle Jake Long at all, not even for one series. Long began camp on the Physically Unable to Perform list until the day after the second preseason game against Carolina and apparently showed enough in practice to allow Sparano to be comfortable not seeing him in live action at all.

“The guy’s played about 5,000 plays in three years so if you play 5,000 plays in three years I’m pretty confident I know what’s going to happen,” he said. “I’m pretty confident that I know what it’s going to take him to get ready to play. Going into today he had close to 200 snaps so by the time we play the game he’ll probably have 350 plays, which to be quite honest with you is a couple hundred away from where the rest of the guys are.”

Of course when he does line up with the starting offense, new running back Reggie Bush will be looking for him whenever he carries the ball in that direction.

“He’s a freak. He’s big and I know anytime I get the ball to the left hand side I’m running behind Jake,” Bush said. “I can’t wait because I know he’s a monster out there and the name speaks for itself. You see him and you right away think I’d like to run behind that guy.”

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters featured article: A ‘Malign Intellectual Subculture’ – George Monbiot Smears Chomsky, Herman, Peterson, Pilger And Media Lens.

Dolphins Team News