This needs to be addressed..

I agree. Based on their profession, for these guys to not be on a strict diet (or one appropriate for their position) is unacceptable. They definitely need to be held more accountable, and it's not like they can't afford it. If a player can't be dedicated to his diet and related health, then how can you trust that he'll be dedicated to the other areas of his profession?

Yup, {speaking generally} this type of action is definitely something the coaches and management should be partly held accountable for.

 

Do you want Sparano to spoonfeed these players or something?

There are many things you should hold him accountable for... the players' diets over the offseason during a lockout is not one of them, IMO.

 

Its a double edged sword, definitely. The players dont want to be treated like babies and told exactly what to do, but with quotes like Ronnie Brown's, some of them should be treated like that. And not to mention Dansby gaining all that weight by just eating "salads and dressing." C'mon man.

 

I agree. Problems during a lockout should make a coach somewhat exempt; however, the Ronnie Brown example Deej used was unrelated to the lockout, so it deserves some merit IMO.

I understand DJ's concern b/c I know how important proper nutrition is to someone who relies on physical performance, heavily stresses their body, and needs as much assistance in recovery & repair as humanly possible.

 

You cannot micromanage these players to that extent. The only thing a coach can do is to try and inspire his players to take the offseason more seriously w.r.t. their diets and workout regimes. If anything, it should be the organization that provides the diet coaches services to the players. The onus is on the players to take it as seriously as possible. But, end of the day, you can lead the horse to water....

 

Alot of talk about potential draft pick seems to focus on "off field issues" and seem to key in on being good citizens but being disiplined enough to keep in shape should be a concern for the money paid to these guys.Those guys that are more inclined to be self motivated are one less problem to deal with.I would like to think they all act as a pro but that's not happening with some of these guys.

 

As far as I'm concerned this year the players let us down in the offseason. The lockout hurt this team badly. It is disturbing that none of them seemed to do any type of conditioning or diet control during this thing. Cost us a shot at the playoffs.

 

You stole my thunder. Right down to the horse-to-water saying. Jerk.

Seriously though, I agree. There's only so much a coach can do and then it's on the player. Lots of players have weight clauses in their contracts (with incentives and/or fines tied to them) and are weighed weekly. That's about as far as you can go from an institutional standpoint to directly motivate them financially (in addition to the offseason workout bonuses and such). And still you have guys taking laxatives to make weight.

In a lockout, it was COMPLETELY on the players. In that scenario, there's nothing Sparano or the organization could have done to prevent their $50 million linebacker from coming in 24 pounds overweight. That's on the player.

And that's part of what separates many good players from great ones. That all-around, year-round commitment and dedication. I have a member of my family who trains like that professionally, all the way down to his diet. It's a lifestyle.

Sparano's change in intensity and such around the midway point seems to be working. Players say they're fresher. Has Tony finally turned the corner?

You'd like to say that would have been the answer at the beginning of this season, but I wonder -- with the lockout and the team being somewhat out of shape -- if we'd have run into a Cam Cameron situation where he went super easy on them and we ended up quickly winded AND soft.....resulting in a barrage of serious injuries.

I will say this, since the lockout ended, the Dolphins training staff appears to have done an excellent job. Look at our injury situation compared to the rest of the league. We're pretty dang healthy.

 

I agree DJ. Nutrition and diet is probably the most important discipline an athlete can have along with conditioning. They go hand in hand. For the athlete not to realize this on his own is highly disturbing. If these guys need to have their diet plan laid for them then hire a damn dietitian. Football players, more then any of the other major American sports, accept discipline and coaching because by nature of the sport its built in to the game and practice habits.

 

IMO the return would be minimal. There would be some who buy in and some that don't. If you speak with a dietician you'll generally find that they complain that their clients tend to to sporadically follow their plans at best. And that's among people who came to the dietician on their own (or usually at a doctor's behest). You start forcing this on players and I expect that their adherence rate will be considerably worse. The ones who would buy in are mostly going to be the ones that have sought out a diet plan on their own. I know fans have a tendency to say "If I was getting paid millions...(insert some comment about working out or eating right here)", but reality is that most fans wouldn't either.

 

I remember Dolphin fans being all pissed off before the 2007 season because Cam Cameron took away Ronnie's job because he came in slow and lazy.
People were up in arms because he had him returning kicks and sitting behind Jesse Chatman.
Turns out it worked and it was one of the few things Cameron did right.
Ronnie turned it around and was extremely productive before the injury.
A coach shouldn't have to do this but when you see a star player under performing due to conditioning he should step in and make an example.
Take away the guys starting job and push the hell out of him.
Very effective.

 

I don't recall Brown coming in out of shape. There was some speculation about him looking pudgy at the start of camp, but that was dispelled when he looked like he always did. He's just never been a great practice player. The reason for the RB competition was that Cam was high on Chatman, who had averaged 6.0 ypc for SD. This was an example of a poor evaluation by Cam rather than some great motivational tactic.

 

Cameron felt Ronnie wasn't in the shape he needed to be to be an every down workhorse type back which is what he wanted him to be. So he worked his *** off trying to get him there.
Remember people were pissed because he was working him so hard in practice.
Chatman was already to that point and Ronnie wasn't.

 

I thought it was part of the coaches' job to keep players motivated?

 

It is, but you can only take it so far, especially during the lockout when coaches weren't allowed to have any contact with the players.

At the end of the day, it's still the player's responsibility to be professional. Coaches can only monitor it to the extent that they're allowed.

You also have a new CBA in place, and there may also be certain restrictions as to what an organization can impose on a player during the off-season.

 

I think that's revisionist history. People were pissed that he was putting the starter on KRs. Cameron just came in with a player he already liked.

 

While I agree that during a non-lockout off-season, the coaches do have a responsibility to check up on their players and ensure they are indeed doing the right thing however...

When players and coaches aren't permitted to speak or correspond with one another in any way, shape or form due to NFL rules governing a lock out, there's very little coaches can do and the onus falls on the multi-millionaire, PROFESSIONAL athletes to ensure they are capable of doing the job they are paid astronomical amounts of money to perform.

To blame a coach for a millionaire being too lazy to hit the gym, pound the asphalt, drop the Milky Way and push away from the table indicates to me that's an undisciplined player I don't want on my team to begin with....because if I can't depend on him to do something as simple as keep himself in some form of shape (and round is NOT a shape for football) during the offseason, then how can I depend on him to do the right thing on the field when it counts most?

 

If a player, in this day and age, isn't smart enough to know what to do to keep himself in shape, I don't want that player on the team. This season, with all the soft tissue injuries throughout the league should certainly make the NFLPA think long and hard about 'cutting back' and shortening the offseason workouts. It's definitely in the players best interest and this season so far is a glaring indictment of the need for even more 'offseason' control of these players. The players want the owners to continue to invest millions and millions of dollars in them, but they don't all make the effort to keep that athletic edge they have. It's really sad.

All that diatribe spoken (or in this case typed), the problem of starting off slowly is not totally on the franchise. It's on the players... Tony Sparano can only do so much...

 

It depends on your definition of "in shape". Dansby said he worked out all off-season, but it was nowhere near the intensity he needed to have. I would guess that +90% of the players workout most of the time. And that 10% that doesn't are mostly the younger, higher draft picks that are in their second or third year and have had some success. For the other 90% it's mostly about how hard those workouts are and how disciplined they are about those diets rather than whether there is some plan in place.

 

And yet 31 teams didn't have this problem. Either we have the most childish players in the league or there's a problem with coaching. Which sounds more likely?

 

I am curious about the conditioning aspect. Why has the heat affected the Dolphins more so than visiting teams this year? Is that due to lack of conditioning, because it can't be attributed to the shortened training camp as the other teams had the same shortened training camp. It has always been an advantage over the years for the Dolphins to wear down opposing teams in the heat and humidity of South Florida. This year the opposite was true as opposing teams wore down the Dolphins.
Another thing I am curious about is Vernon Carey's weight issues and why no one could motivate him to reduce his weight? Seemed like he was a better, quicker player when he played at a lighter weight.

 

That is a mighty accusation. Why would I change it. Ronnie wasn't geared to be an every down workhorse type back. Not hard to see bro.

http://dolphinsindepth.blogspot.com/2007/07/heats-on-ronnie-brown.html

 

That's simplistic. All teams had issues with this to varying degrees. I think we had more issues with our defense than our offense. I think that if our defense had worked harder in the off-season that we win two or three of the early games. The defense should have come in way ahead since they weren't trying to install a new system. And it wasn't even the whole defense. I think our secondary in particular doomed us early. And that Burnett and Dansby are completely different players than early on. I think most of that (except for that tweak with how Jones is used) is a change in conditioning rather than any big change in the coaching.

 

Of course its conditioning, no one is arguing that. My point was whose fault is the lack of conditioning, the players or coaches? Sure all teams had this problem, but none to the degree we did. Which was the point of the post you quoted.

 

You started off in this thread saying RB came in slow and lazy. This article says he came in in shape, but that Cameron wanted him to be in even better shape to become a superstar back. There is nothing in there that supports your earlier contention. That's not that hard to see.

 

It's obviously the player's fault since the coaches were not allowed to have any contact with them. And as I said in another post, it wasn't all the players. I think we just had a concentration of that issue in our coverage players. I would point fingers primarily at the CBs and the coverage LBs.

 

Ronnie was a back that was used to splitting time and always has been. I said slow and lazy not out of shape. They don't necessarily mean the same thing but my point was that CC pushed his conditioning and no one else ever did that to ronnie and his production improved. You said Cameron brought in his own guy. Making it sound like he didn't care about Ronnie. I stated that Cameron worked him extra hard in practice and the article backs it up. He wanted Ronnie to be the every down back and he pushed him. Up to that point Ronnie was slow and lazy because he didn't have to go through those types of practices otherwise it would have been business as usual.

 

I think that Cameron clearly brought in his own guy. I remember him saying that he thought Chatman was as talented as Brown when Miami signed him. I believe the carry distribution early on was primarily b/c Cameron wanted to prove that. It just turns out he was wrong. And saying RB was slow and lazy is not the same as saying he wasn't an every down back either. In fact, i don't see how you can claim with a straight face that by calling RB lazy you weren't implying that he didn't work hard enough and was out of shape.

 

Ronnie Brown was probably as close to being an elite back as he was going to be in 2007 before the injury.
It is no secret how that was accomplished.
Cam Cameron pushed Ronnie, made him work for his job and improved his conditioning.

 

It's b/c he was used in a system that highlighted his skills. Generally that's the key for most talented players, being used correctly. I don't think it was b/c he was in better shape that year than in previous years. And I don't agree that he came in slow and lazy that year.

 

Just curious how people who blame the coaches for RBs poor performance because of his conditioning explain his lack of any meaningfull contributions in Philly. Is it also the coaches fault up there too?

 

Ronnie was never really a well conditioned football player at the beginning of camp and here in this very thread he admits that he is eating badly. If he would show up like Jerry Rice I might begin to agree with your point but you are reaching with the scheme being right and all.
Cameron comes here and humps his *** in camp then he goes out and plays the best he has in his whole career and there is no coincidence?
I remember Ronnie saying it himself that the conditioning did him a world of good and made all the difference.
Maybe you took my comment about slow and lazy to the extreme. We can agree to disagree but you are wrong....