A few takeaways from the premiere episode.
Miami Dolphins head coach Joe Philbin, center, talks to Karlos Dansby, right, as Cameron Wake, left, smiles during a stretching exercise at NFL football training camp in Davie, Fla., Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012.HBO just finished airing the premiere episode of Hard Knocks starring the Miami Dolphins, and from the early moments it was clear that there is going to be plenty of storylines of interest to Patriots fans.
Here are a few takeaways from the episode:
PHILBIN’S WAY: Dolphins head coach and Longmeadow native Joe Philbin may run the most interesting camp in the NFL. Most teams typically have their offense going against their defense and take time to reset after every play. Not Philbin. Instead of doing things the traditional way, he has two teams lined up against each other, facing opposite directions on the field. When one play wraps, the other begins immediately. This approach, as HBO said, allows him to run more plays per minute than any team in the NFL. Several players were caught on camera complaining about the pace.
CHAD’S TALKING: You already knew that Chad Johnson was going to be hamming it up for the cameras, and he didn’t disappoint. In his first on-field appearance, he was shown dropping a pass in a montage. The next time we see him he’s all over the field making incredible catches. His best moments came, of course, when he was talking. Here is Johnson’s explanation for last year’s failures:
“I took a year off to give everyone else a chance to catch up.”
Humorous, sure, but later on Johnson was a bit more introspective.
“I drifted away from what got me where I was. I got comfortable. I felt I had arrived,” he said. “Or I made it, I got it. It somewhat caught up to me. I got exposed. One year. But so many people forget that I handled my business for a decade straight. You know how long that is to play up here?”
COLD REALITY: The show opened with an emotional reminder of how brutal the business side of the NFL can be by documenting the release of undrafted guard Derek Dennis. Now a member of the Patriots, Dennis’ fate was written before he was given the chance to go through his conditioning test. “I just hope to make the 53-man roster,” Dennis said before being released.