DAVIE, Fla. (AP) -Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga stopped by training camp Tuesday and gave new coach Cam Cameron a rave review.
It may help that the Dolphins are 2-0 in the exhibition season. It probably helps even more that Cameron isn’t former coach Nick Saban.
“It’s different around here,” Huizenga said.
The genial Cameron took over as coach in January when the volatile Saban bolted for Alabama. At the time of the change, Huizenga promised a less tense working environment, which he now says Cameron has achieved.
“The style is completely different,” Huizenga said. “His style is vastly different from other people. Players seem to like him. They like the way he’s running practice. They like the way he treats them and so forth. It’s good.
“But it all gets down to winning games, right?”
That’s where Cameron ultimately will succeed or fail. He’s trying to revive a franchise that has been out of the playoffs the past five years, the longest drought in Dolphins history.
With the first game still more than two weeks away, Huizenga said Cameron is off to a good start.
“I’m very pleased,” the owner said. “I like him a lot. He’s a real, real great guy.
“I like the way he thinks. I like his strategy. I like how he deals with the players. He’s a good person. You know what I mean? And that carries over into everything else.”
One achievement by the new regime: All 10 draft picks were signed when camp began last month, a change from the past two years when the top choice held out and missed the start of camp.
Last March, Huizenga said any rookie holdouts this year would be benched when they finally reported.
“I don’t know if the ultimatum accomplished anything,” he said. “Right from day one, Coach was talking to players, saying, ‘Hey, it’s important you’re here from Day 1.’ They all said, ‘We understand.’ Because they had a lot of that discussion early on, I think everybody felt they wanted to be here.”
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