Del Rio has developed a more casual style with the media, not yet again the adversarial situation he set up last year. I say not yet, because it still is training camp, and the season’s good or misfortunes await. The awareness of what the players need it higher in this camp. Sensing they needed a little more discipline, Del Rio implemented a curfew this year. He’s also decided he’d rather have his veteran players at 100% than have them limping along nursing an injury.

“We’ve got some guys who have some strains. We’re just trying to be smart. We’d rather lower guys reps or hold them out of a practice and get him back. We got Big John (Henderson) back this morning; we held him out last night. We’d rather do that than have a guy rip his groin up or rip his hamstring and then lose him for a long period time. I’m trying to be smart about it.”

He knows what Jimmy Smith can do, so as his star receiver nurses a back strain, Del Rio is patiently waiting for his return. It’s not important whether he plays in Miami Saturday night or not. Even if Smith was healthy, he’d see limited action against the Dolphins. Mostly guys trying to win a spot on the roster will be on the field for a majority of the game. “Our approach this year in this first game will be to meet as a staff and determine how much we want to play our guys. We haven’t had a chance to finalize that. I think as a general rule, you play your starters a little more increasingly until the last preseason game. We’ll look at that, but again we have not had an opportunity as a staff together and formalize what we’re going to do.”

The team will have a decision to make on Tony Brackens soon. They gave him a $300,000 signing bonus to pretty much look at what he might be able to contribute. His contract calls for just over $1 million dollars in salary, all guaranteed and under the cap if he’s on the roster on opening day. With a muscle torn off the bone behind his knee, Brackens hasn’t been able to practice at all over the last few days, and wasn’t able to do much when he reported because of the lingering effects of the micro fracture surgery from two years ago. He most likely won’t practice again during this training camp, so the team will most likely have to make a quicker decision than they originally planned.

“It certainly makes our decision tougher if we don’t get the time to see him work, but I don’t want to get ahead of the story. Let’s wait and see. We have a lot of camp left. Right now, it’s a mid-way point. We have a 26-day camp schedule. We’re at day 13, so we’re right in the middle of it. We’d like to get him back and get a look at him, but he has to get healthy first.”