Professor

Cameron keeps calm after a rough beginning

excerpt:

MIAMI GARDENS — Nick Saban's honeymoon as Miami Dolphins coach lasted way too long and everybody knows it.

Cam Cameron, consequently, got a little more than a quarter Saturday night in his first exhibition game as Dolphins boss, an 18-17 win over Jacksonville, before the boos came floating down lightly from the upper deck.

The reason was a ragged three-and-out offensive series featuring two Ronnie Brown carries up the middle and a dead-duck draw play.

There were better moments, including a 74-yard scoring run by Jesse Chatman and a fourth-quarter touchdown and two-point conversion from rookie John Beck's mopup unit.

Little came, however, from Trent Green or Ted Ginn Jr., the first-round draft pick whose primary characteristic in the view of Miami fans thus far is that he is not Brady Quinn.

By halftime, with Jacksonville up 10-3 and all the starters on both teams safely gathered on the sidelines, the Dolphins' opening effort of 2007 left all but Cameron feeling a bit let down, no matter what was about to come from the guys who probably won't make the team anyway.

Silly, of course, at this stage of the summer, but that's human nature.

The superhuman stuff, that pretty much ended around here with Dan Marino and Don Shula.

Before the Dolphins get back into serious playoff contention, before Wayne Huizenga's constantly morphing stadium becomes more than a Super Bowl playground for visiting teams, some coach has got to stick around here long enough to make a real difference. That coach might well be Cameron, but only if fans can exercise some patience.

Beck, who teamed with running back Patrick Cobbs to produce the winning 69-yard touchdown drive, eventually will, though it makes no sense to wish him into the lineup this year.

That would smack of desperation, and that almost rhymes with concussion, and Cameron doesn't want any of those negative vibes associated with Green, his 37-year-old security blanket.

"He is still clever in the pocket," Cameron said at halftime when asked about Green. "We'll get our protection units squared away. I liked what I saw."

Can there really be that much to like in a quarterback who completes 6-of-15 passes for 60 yards with two sacks, a fumble and a pick? Depends on your perspective. Cameron's is where it needs to be, focused on the distant horizon of September, but that won't stop fans from howling for Cleo Lemon at quarterback, or even Beck, the rookie from BYU.

I don't think the new boss will flinch much, though he did put his first unit through a pre-season situational drill in the opening quarter. Fourth-and-1 at the Miami 29 and Cam called for the body-slam, a charge up the middle by 246-pound fullback Cory Schlesinger just to show his remodeled offensive line that they can do it.

That play worked, but most of the signals Cameron sent in from the sideline in the first half were fairly bland. Ginn got one pass for 9 yards. Brown got 8 yards on eight carries, an ugly average any time of the year.

All in all, the greatest contribution by a Cameron newcomer was the punting of seventh-round draft pick Brandon Fields, who thumped two 54-yarders and dumped two more inside the Jaguars' 15-yard line.

All other conclusions are moot on a night when Jason Taylor and Zach Thomas watch casually in gym shorts and T-shirts, a night when Chris Chambers cruises around as a decoy.

There seems to be no threat here, though, to AFC heavyweights like Indianapolis, New England and San Diego. Saban got the Dolphins to 6-10; Cameron will have to work like crazy to get them back over .500.

So we watch Cameron to see if he's comfortable with that task. The first trick is finding him. He doesn't strut around like Saban did, or identify himself easily with a mustache and a curious smirk like Dave Wannstedt, or sport a signature 'do like Jimmy Johnson.

Cameron, he's the guy with white playsheet tucked down the front of his pants. His headset was on more than eight minutes from kickoff Saturday, but only after he spent a few moments shaking hands with Huizenga and the owner's family. The man who writes the checks seemed pretty happy altogether, waving at fans as he strolled across the field and doing a local TV interview up in the booth.

The fans were pumped up, too, at least once the game started going Miami's way. "Let's Go, Beck," was a popular chant in the fourth quarter.

Kicker Josh Scobee could have been the buzz-killer, but his 43-yard field-goal attempt off the infield dirt drifted wide right.

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