The 6-foot-5, 328-pounder was taken 73rd overall out of Ole Miss where he started 46 of 49 games, including 12 as a freshman, at right guard. He went on to make nine starts at the same position in 2007 and received 13 starting assignments at right tackle as a junior. He split time at right tackle and right guard as a senior when he was an All-SEC first team selection.
new Miami Dolphins jerseys defensive end Phillip Merling has been formally charged with felony battery on his pregnant girlfriend.
In the early morning hours of May 27, Merling, 25, was arrested at his Weston home by Broward sheriff's deputies for aggravated battery on Kristen Lennon, police said.
With this charge by the Broward State Attorney's Office, police allege that Merling knew or should have known she was pregnant, according to a complaint affidavit.
The Dolphins defensive end was released on $15,000 bail. He has filed a Jake Long not guilty plea and a demand for a jury trial. His attorney, Edward J. O'Donnell Jr. of Miami, was in court Monday and not available to comment, an office staffer said.
But a head coach often begins to hear drumbeats of restlessness during a third season on the job. Take, for example, what happened to Dave Wannstedt, who preceeded Saban, and Jimmy Johnson, who preceded Wannstedt.
Johnson's third regular-season record of 10-6 was good enough to get the Davone Bess Dolphins into the AFC playoffs, and they even won a game once there. But the season-ender was a 38-3 massacre at Denver, a loss so bad that Johnson had to be talked into returning for a fourth season. He did, Miami went 9-7, won another playoff game and then endured the 62-7 humiliation at Jacksonville that ended Johnson's career and Dan Marino's, too.
Wannstedt then took over and led the Dolphins to the playoffs his first two seasons, but never again. He seemed often discombobulated by the end of his third season. And he was gone in the middle of his fifth year, which led to the Saban-Cameron messes.
Sparano had much work to do in the wake of that quinella of dysfunction, and getting the Dolphins into the playoffs in his opening act was an astonishing performance. It also bought Sparano some time when the Dolphins, as expected, slipped to 7-9 last year.
But time can run out quickly in the NFL where no honeymoon lasts as long as the groom hopes, and frequently believes, it will. Sparano isn't likely to fall into that trap - he's not big on entitlement - but it will be interesting to see how he manages a team of his own construction. He was comfortable enough to say during the spring that "there will be no surprises" in terms of understanding the team's work ethic when training camp opens July 30.
"We can push the volume and then start to level off maybe a little bit earlier," Sparano said.
His reasoning was based on the amount of information that already has been installed and Pat White distilled. Sparano expects these Dolphins to be ahead of the summertime learning curve no matter how many new faces show up as starters on defense or how new headliner receiver Brandon Marshall might process the offense.
It's fun to note, by the way, that a head coach named Don Shula led the Dolphins to a perfect record and a Super Bowl title in his third year with the team. Sparano would do well just to get Miami back into the playoffs for a second time on his watch
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