MIAMI GARDENS — The ramp-up toward the regular season for Miami Dolphins tight end Darren Waller has begun.
It took a month with the team and out of retirement for Waller to become an active participant in practice, never taking part in team drills during any training camp practice. He started camp on the physically-unable-to-perform list and then didn’t do much in terms of drills his first few days off the PUP list.
But at Wednesday’s practice, after the team made its roster cuts to get down to 53 players and before it begins to focus in on its Sept. 7 Week 1 opponent, the Indianapolis Colts, Waller said he had competitive reps against the defense in portions of practice closed to the media.
“I’m happy to be where I’m at and in the mix,” Waller said after the day’s drills. “My first practice in a while and, in some ways, it feels like it. There’s always going to be areas to grow, things you got to knock some rust off, but I’m just grateful to be where I’m at.”
Said coach Mike McDaniel Thursday: “He’s right where we’d want him in group activity.”
McDaniel had said Waller needs to get back into football shape, although he was in tremendous physical shape, after a year away from the game.
Waller was on PUP for the first four weeks of camp, working out on the side. By the time joint practices with the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions rolled around, McDaniel wasn’t going to throw Waller into the fire in that competitive of a setting.
He was activated last week, the week of a joint practice with the Jacksonville Jaguars, but he wasn’t seen taking part in drills. By last Saturday’s preseason finale, Waller was dressed for warmups at Hard Rock Stadium, but it was only so he could go through a pregame routine but not be exposed to contact during the game.
Waller has understood the limitations placed on him.
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“You can’t always predict how your body will respond from having time away,” Waller said. “Mostly, it’s just my body responding well and, in some ways, it didn’t, so it was just like being cautious in that way to, I guess, look at the bigger picture as opposed to maybe rushing in to get ready for the very beginning.”
McDaniel dismisses the idea there is reason for concern over Waller’s chemistry with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
“I’m comfortable until I’m shown a reason not to be comfortable,” he said. “And then, with those two guys and how intentional they are, that just takes one meeting of concerted detail before I think that they will be in step.”
After Waller lost some of his passion for the game ahead of last season with the New York Giants when he initially chose to retire. He feels comfortable with his decision to reverse course.
“I feel good,” he said. “I know coming back in is going to be a process. It’s not going to be something that you just walk back into. In some ways it’s like riding a bike, but in a lot of ways, there’s a physical demand, there’s a mental demand, emotional demand, that you’ve got to get back used to and I respect that that’s a process and that’s a grind.”
