With less than three weeks remaining before the season opener, coach Tony Sparano said the Dolphins needed to thin the ranks to get a better look at the players he could be counting on.
That’s why the team didn’t wait until the Sept. 1, the deadline to get down to 75 players, to begin trimming the roster.
The team released six players, including free-agent bust Ernest Wilford. The team also traded offensive linemen Andy Alleman and Ike Ndukwe, who were the starting guards during the Dolphins’ first playoff appearance in six years.
The Dolphins now have 70 players on the roster. The team has to cut down to 53 players by Sept. 5, two days after the pre-season finale at New Orleans.
The other players released were RB Anthony Kimble, LB Orion Martin, LB Tearrius George and NT Joe Cohen. Return man Chris Williams was placed on the waived/injured list with a broken left hand.
Coach Tony Sparano called the busy morning “business as usual” for a regime that made 160 roster moves last season, not even including practice squad moves.
Sparano said he’s never known Bill Parcells to wait for the deadlines for roster cuts set by the NFL.
With that in mind, don’t expect the Dolphins to be adding many players to the mix with two pre-season games on tap in the next 11 days, including Thursday’s visit to Tampa Bay.
“It’s really been my history with Bill and (GM) Jeff Ireland, we like to get the numbers to where they’re more manageable, at least from a reps standpoint,” Sparano said. “Once you get through a couple good solid weeks of training camp and you get through the second pre-season game, you have to get a team ready anyway.
“You’d be bringing guys to the game this week who wouldn’t be playing. And if you’re bringing a lot of guys to the game that you have no intention of playing and you plan to play your starters longer, you’re probably not going to have enough reps to go around.
“It’s probably not good business.”
