John Beck's Second Season

Miami Dolphins' minicamp is underway, and BYU product John Beck is once again in competition for a starting spot in South Florida.

The quarterback derby is outlined in this article from miamidolphins.com:

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"It might be the most important decision Tony Sparano will make all season, so he's planning on taking his time before naming the Dolphins' starting quarterback.

Actually, he's going to take as much as time as needed. Sparano made that clear after the Dolphins' first minicamp practice Friday.

"Nah, I don't think there's a deadline in a quarterback situation," he said. "When you have a quarterback competition, I think you know when you know, if that makes sense. You've got to see all the information unwind. You've got to see it in games, you've got to see what they do in critical situations, and then you get a pretty good feel and that's the way you go.

"But I don't think you can say, hey, on Aug. 3 this is going to be where we're going to make this quarterback deal. Not sure you get all your questions answered at that point. There's a lot of questions that have to be answered when you're making a decision on a quarterback. Some may happen very fast, some may take a little bit more time. We'll have to see how the preseason goes and how these training camps get on."

The three candidates for the job are free agent acquisition Josh McCown, 2007 second-round pick John Beck and 2008 second-round choice Chad Henne. Offensive coordinator Dan Henning says simply: "We think we've got three good candidates there."

Beck and McCown have been alternating working with the first-team offense during the spring, but to suggest there is any kind of pecking order at this time would be off the mark.

"I wouldn't rank them at all right now," said Henning. "We're still in the process of installing what we're trying to do, we're trying to train them to do the process the way that we do it."

Of the three, McCown clearly has the edge in terms of experience, having already spent six seasons in the NFL.

"That's in his favor for sure," said quarterbacks coach David Lee. "He's been knocked around, but he's had some good games. He's had several games where he threw for over 300 yards. He's got about 35-40 starts. That's invaluable also. But the No. 1 thing about him is he's got great leadership qualities. I mean, he's a wonderful leader, just a natural leader. I mean, he'll get in the huddle, get two high-fives, two low-fives and call the huddle. You like that about him."

Beck, for his part, is coming off a difficult rookie season during which he started four games and finished with a passer rating of 62.0.

But Beck has worked hard in the offseason to make himself better. Henning estimates that Beck has thrown between 6,000 and 7,000 passes since the end of last season — "If you want to see them, we have them all on tape," he said.

Heading into his second season, Beck says that he feels a lot more comfortable and that the game has slowed down considerably for him.

"Each day I'm improving," he said. "Day by day we're all improving and I think that's the big thing. The competition level is rising each day because as they get better, then I've got to raise my bar and continue to get better."

The fact the Dolphins are only carrying three quarterbacks on their roster at this time of year is rather unusual, but Lee says it's a tribute to the intelligence of those guys.

"All three are very bright, and all three have a great work ethic," Lee said. "It's unusual that all three are bright and all have those kind of work habits. But they do, and it's a great credit to them. I think it's why we've been able to accelerate ourselves offensively and look fairly sharp from time to time."

Sparano pointed out earlier this week that the quarterbacks seemed to be taking turns having great practices, but that what was lacking was a consistent progression.

It might be that kind of consistency that could decide the Dolphins' quarterback battle. But the real test will come when the preseason arrives.

"I really believe this in my heart, you evaluate a quarterback once he gets in a game, there's people in the stands and they're cursing at him and throwing ice, and that FOX camera is running over his head in the huddle," Lee said. "That's when you've got to evaluate the quarterback.

"Now, this (minicamp) is important. We're watching them and evaluating them daily. But I've had guys that could really practice and get into games and spit out the bit. I've never forgotten those guys, so with that, we've got to get these guys to a game and let them play before we go naming 1-2 and 3."

Really, it's the No. 1 who truly matters, who can make the difference between winning and losing at times.

So even if it takes all of the preseason to decide who that guy should be, Sparano won't have a problem with that.

"Not if it's the right decision and not if it takes that long to make the best decision," he said. "I mean, in a perfect situation you'd like your quarterback to be behind the offensive line and to be in the first huddle as soon as maybe you can get that done in the preseason, but I've been involved in those things before, I've been involved in some of those situations in Dallas. It's taken time to play itself out to make the right decision."

In the final analysis, that's really all that matters for the Dolphins — making the right decision.

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