Weather forces practice inside, but cooler heads don’t prevail

Scuffle breaks out between WR Grant and CB Fitzpatrick.

DAVIE — When lightning began striking the area near training camp shortly after the Dolphins took the field Monday morning, players headed inside to their air-conditioned bubble.

Cooler heads did not prevail. A brief scuffle broke out between receiver Jakeem Grant and cornerback Minkah Fitzpatrick.

A few things to consider: At 5-feet-7, Jakeem Grant might be the last guy you’d picture as a combatant among 200- and 300-pounders.

As the No. 1 draft pick and a rookie, Fitzpatrick isn’t a go-to guy to headline one of Vince McMahon’s pay-perview cards, either.

But the No. 1 shocker from the episode was the involvement of cornerback Bobby McCain as ... peacemaker?

“I was. I was trying to, yes. For the first time, I think, in my life,” McCain said. “No, I’m just kidding.”

McCain is the team’s renowned trash-talker who got ejected from the game in New England last year following a scuffle with then-Patriot Danny Amendola, who’s now a Dolphin.

“It’s going to happen,” said McCain, who had a brief difference of opinion with Amendola again Monday. “The coaches know it’s going to happen; we know it’s going to happen. We’re coming out and being competitive every day. That’s what we’re about.”

Dolphins coach Adam Gase said it actually makes sense that the cooler temps triggered emotions on the same day players donned pads.

“Because it’s not 113 degrees in the heat index,” Gase said. “Guys, they’re not going to get as tired in there as they would outside. The heat drains them. That’s when you usually don’t see too many tie-ups and things like that. Everybody’s conserving energy for the next play. When you get in there, guys get riled up.”

Especially when it’s receivers and cornerbacks.

“We’re going to have scuffles,” Grant said. “We’re going to bad-mouth each other.”

There was plenty of jawing back and forth whenever one side or the other claimed victory.

“Whenever we put on pads, the defense always wants to bring that intensity of trying to see if they can make a big hit on us, make us drop the ball, anything like that,” Grant said. “But one thing about us this year: We’re bringing that physicality right back at them.

“That’s why we bump heads a lot, and then at the end of the day we’re all teammates and we’re going to shake hands because there’s no hard feelings.”

Trash talk is one thing. When things turn physical, quarterback Ryan Tannehill said there are two ways to look at it.

“There’s good and bad to it,” Tannehill said. “You see the fire that some of our guys have and the passion that we play with and you love seeing that aspect. You love seeing that competitiveness, the desire to win.”

But, he added, “You don’t really want to take away from practice and be a distraction and take away from the greater good. There’s a fine line between going all out and being a distraction.”

Tunsil has high hopes: Laremy Tunsil understands the expectations. Tunsil understands he is expected to become to one of the great all-time Miami Dolphins offensive linemen.

And if it doesn’t happen, he’ll be disappointed too.

“I just want to be great,” Tunsil said Sunday, after the fourth Dolphins training camp practice. “That’s it. I want to be great.”

Tunsil said he went back to Ole Miss this summer and refocused on his preparations for the season.

“No breeze at all in Mississippi,” Tunsil said. “We used to go run outside and my cleats used to melt. That’s how hot it was.”

Tunsil must reduce his pre-snap penalties at left tackle. And he must rediscover the foot speed, balance and power he exhibited during a dominant college career.

Offensive line coach Jeremiah Washburn has been impressed: “He came with that eye. He had that eye as soon as he came back in the spring. It was something that he found within.”