Gravelle puts up his tent on practice squad
Long snapper happy to be back with Dolphins.
DAVIE — It’s taking longer to construct those big party tents around Niagara Falls today.
It’s the Dolphins’ fault. Lucas Gravelle, the muscular, 239-pound guy who had been doing his share of the grunt work, no longer is around.
As much as he may have hated to do it, Gravelle had to abruptly quit Monday morning, even though it meant turning his back on $13 — yes, 13 whole dollars — an hour.
“I’d rather be here,” he said.
Dolphins long snapper John Denney injured his shoulder in the Dolphins’ opener, which surely motivated the team to re-sign Gravelle, who’d competed with Denney in training camp, as insurance.
The Dolphins think Denney will be able to play Sunday against the Jets, continuing his streak of 209 games played, but Gravelle is happy to be back in Davie, albeit on Miami’s practice squad.
“Crazy week,” Gravelle said of his journey.
Gravelle had been living in a friend’s spare room in upstate New York and hooked up with friends in the party-tent business. Then, the opening Sunday of the NFL season rolled around.
“I didn’t really feel like watching football because I was kind of down,” Gravelle said.
He caught some of the Bills’ game, then decided that, with temperatures hovering around 60, no one would be out on the golf course, so he played a round.
“I was out there and my one snapping coach calls me,” Gravelle said. “He goes, ‘Dude, you gotta know what’s going on. John Denney just hurt his shoulder. They’ve got the tight end in there snapping.’ ”
It’s true. The Dolphins relied on rookie Durham Smythe to snap to punter Matt Haack when Denney was unable to go back in. As the game wore on, Darren Rizzi, the special teams coordinator, had gone to Smythe and told him to be ready.
“But he also said that hasn’t happened in 14 years with him, so you don’t expect it,” Smythe said.
The last time Smythe handled long snapping in a game? “My junior year of high school,” he said.
The number of times Smythe long-snapped in practice last week?
“Zero to one,” he said. But Smythe was ready because he joined the other specialists in working OT after practice, so he practiced long snaps when most players had hit the showers. Smythe said his snap “wasn’t my best work — it kind of skipped a little bit” but Haack got the punt off, so all ended well.
Long snapping has to be the NFL’s most-overlooked position — until, that is, a snap goes awry and costs your team a game. That’s why the Dolphins can’t afford to take chances, even if Gravelle didn’t think he’d get the call.
“I kind of actually forgot about it because my hopes weren’t up,” he said. “But I woke up to about 20 missed calls in the morning the next day. My phone was on silent.”
Next thing he knew, he was packing for a flight back to South Florida. Sadly, he would not spend the day putting up tents.
“We’re nonstop,” he said of the tent biz. “The thing is, we wake up in the morning and go in at 8:30 and you could get out at 3 or you could work till 8.”
If Gravelle is working from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, great.
“I’m not nervous,” he said of the possibility he could be called upon against the Jets. “I’m prepared. See how John’s feeling. I want to start, but I also want him to feel better.”
Denney’s streak of 209 games is the longest in team history, dwarfing the 130 by the No. 2 man on the list, Jason Taylor.
No one on the team seems to have more respect for Denney than Gravelle and Smythe.
“It’s insane,” Gravelle said of the streak. “It’s definitely something to look up to.”
Smythe: “Football’s football — there’s a lot of physical things that come along with any position including long snapper, so it’s crazy that it’s been so long.”