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Dolphins News: Roster Cuts Announced
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Dolphins News: Roster Cuts Announced
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*** DOLPHINS NEWS ***
Aug 25, 1998: -- Roster Cuts Announced --

The Dolphins have announced the roster cuts made today in order to bring the roster down to the required level. The team made more cuts than were necessary and have trimmed the roster to 58 players. With 2 exemptions, one for Damon Huard and one for Tim Bowens, that leaves the Dolphins with 62 spots on the roster until next Tuesday.

The following players were waived by the team and can be claimed off the waiver wire by other teams:

	Kevin Alexander, WR
	Dunstan Anderson, DE
	Brad Jackson, LB
        Richard Jones, CB
        Jerris McPhail, RB
        Andre Rone, WR
        Scott Shaw, G
        Derrick Shepard, DT
        Antoine Simpson, DT
        Landon Smith, FB
        Barry Stokes, OT
        Nathan Strikwerda, C
        Ronnie Ward, LB

In addition to those 13, the team terminated the contracts of the following two veterans:

        Tim Jacobs, CB
        John Kidd, P

The team also officially placed WRs Yatil Green and Larry Shannon on the injured reserve list, meaning that they do not count towards the roster numbers and can not return to play this year.

Mike Crawford was placed on the Physically-unable-to-perform list and also doesn't count towards a roster spot, but can return after week 6 of the regular season. And Randy Wheeler was placed on the reserve/non-football related injury list.

The cuts today leave the team with the following number of players at each position:

	OFF:		DEF:
	QB:  3		DE: 5
	RB:  4          DT: 4
	FB:  3          LB: 7
	WR:  6          CB: 5
	TE:  4		S:  4
	OL: 11
	P:   1
	K:   1

In related news, the Sun-Sentinel reported this morning that the Dolphins and Tim Bowens have reached agreement on a long term contract of 5 years for undisclosed terms. The Sun-Sentinel said that Drew Rosenhaus spent yesterday in a marathon negotiating session with the Dolphins that ended late last night.

While terms of the deal were not disclosed, the paper reported that both sides had made considerable concessions from their original negotiating positions.

My Comments:

There were no real individual surprises in today's cuts, although taken as a whole, some of the decisions are intriguing. The first thing I noticed was that JJ decided to keep 11 offensive linemen. In the past 2 years, JJ has not kept more than 8 offensive linemen on the regular roster.

Also, if you look at the players that remain on the offensive line, the only one who is eligible for the practice squad is Jim Bundren. All of the other offensive linemen are veterans and are not eligible to be signed to the practice squad.

So what's going on? Is there some truth to the rumor that JJ started the other day saying that other teams were calling and asking about our offensive linemen? Is JJ trying to gear up for a trade? Certainly, the Dolphins need at least some depth at wide receiver and a genuine starter would be even better.

The double release of Ronnie Ward and Brad Jackson is a little surprising and I'm wondering if they're hoping that Jackson will still be around next week for the practice squad, but I doubt it. I guess the competition was just too intense to keep them. Certainly, linebacker is a deep position for the defense.

And speaking of the defense, JJ is keeping 25 defensive players and 31 offensive players. I guess this means that most of the cuts next week will be on the offensive side of the line.

I did look briefly at the players who have been cut and there don't appear to be any particularly good wide receivers out there right now - not that I would expect that there would be. The only name I recognized was Michael Haynes, who was a great receiver in the past, but is really gone downhill over the past few years. Last year he only caught 12 passes.

The other thing that surprised me was that JJ kept 4 tight ends. I think they may be projecting Chris Fontenot for the practice squad, but I was sure that Frank Wainwright was history. That, however, does not appear to be the case. I guess Mike Westhoff still likes his long-snapper too much to let him go.

Also, with the new offense, tight ends are much more important than they have been in the past. With Fontenot headed for the practice squad and JJ probably wanting to keep at least 3 on the roster, Wainwright may be safe for another year.

I expect that you will see a flurry of players come to Miami and try out for the team in the next few days. With 4 roster spots available, JJ will want to see if he can find another gem like Mark Dixon in the cuts made by the other teams. I would not be surprised to see Miami sign two or three players by the end of the day, today.

As for Tim Bowens' contract, I'm glad that they're getting it done. With Rosenhaus finding no takers for his trade ideas and Bowens showing some good faith by reporting to camp, both sides were put in a position to compromise - which is apparently what has happened.

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Curt Fennell, curt@phins.com, DOLFAN in New Rochelle (almost)
     
   

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Curt Fennell
curt@phins.com
DOLFAN in New England