Veteran RB Gore setting example
DAVIE – When Miami Dolphins running back Frank Gore gets the ball during training camp, you know it. He runs hard, he runs with purpose, and he usually gains yards. Gore’s feats are more impressive when you consider the 35-year-old is running past or through guys who are 10 to 12 years younger.
“I love it,” Gore said. “That’s the way I train. I train with young guys in the offseason just to be honest and keep myself sure, to let myself know if I’m ready or will I be ready.
“If I can go and compete with those young guys during training in the offseason, I should be fine during football [season].”
Evidently that strategy is working.
Gore, a likely future Hall of Fame selection who ranks No. 5 on the league’s all-time rushing list, was listed as costarter at running back along with Kenyan Drake on the Dolphins’ first depth chart, which was released Sunday.
The depth chart listing was a bit of a surprise, because conventional wisdom was that Drake, the thirdyear player who led the NFL in rushing the last five weeks of the 2017 season (444 yards), would be the starter and Gore would be the complementary back.
Coach Adam Gase, who cautioned not to put too much importance on that depth chart, was asked Monday why he listed Gore and Drake as co-starters.
But clearly Gore, who is in his 14th NFL training camp but first with the Dolphins, has made quite an impression on everyone, which has been his goal throughout training camp.
“I want to get my respect from my teammates,” said Gore, who gained 961 yards last season with Indianapolis and now has 14,026 for his career, 75 behind Curtis Martin for No. 4 on the alltime list.
“I want to come out here every day, give my coaches and my teammates 110 [percent], go out here and compete, have fun, and when it’s game time, go out here and show them who I am.”
That, too, evidently, working.
“It really surprised me how hard he hits the hole,” quarterback Ryan Tannehill said. “When he runs downhill, he puts his foot in the ground and he goes.
“You see it on the tape, but to see it in person, you see a crease that’s a foot wide, barely able to get a helmet through there and somehow he fits his whole body through there and is off to the next level.”
Running back coach Eric Studesville sees Gore work both on and off the field. So do the younger players.
“Frank carries himself like a professional in everything that he does. … I think those young guys do see that,” he said. is