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Overblown addition? Ndamukong Suh's intensity washes over Dolphins defense

DAVIE, Fla. – In another broiling South Florida morning, most of the Miami Dolphins showed up to practice in shorts.

Not Ndamukong Suh.

He was out there in full gear, with game pants and leg pads, tearing through any offensive lineman in his way. There are no true sacks in training camp, but the defensive line would have had several in real play. Tuesday was a borderline mauling by Suh and crew of guards Billy Turner and Dallas Thomas. The message from the domination is the same message from the game pants: things are going to be serious here.

"I want to dominate Dallas," Suh said. "I want to dominate Billy. At the end of the day, that's my job, that's what I was brought here for, and that's my goal."

From the looks of the first few days of camp, the Suh ripple effect is two-fold: he's making the entire defense look very good and he's making parts of the offense look pretty bad. The Fins' defensive front is flying to the ball on pretty much every snap, and that's morphed the offensive line into somewhat of a turnstile. It's hard to figure if Suh and Cameron Wake are toughening up the guards or exposing them. It might be both.

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"You can tell guys watch him, but I don't think they know how lucky they are to have someone like that next to him on the field," said C.J. Mosley, who came here with Suh from Detroit.

"This is one of the guys who is one of the best if not the best in the whole league. You're lucky to have that every single day."

It's hard to measure the Suh effect; how much of the Lions becoming an elite defense after years of embarrassment was because of one player? One of Suh's former teammates called the fallout from his departure "overblown," but you can already see the impact here. The pass rush is more forceful, the linebackers can take more chances, and the secondary can be aggressive. That's just in a couple hours of camp; imagine the spillover after weeks of a long season (especially in the heat of South Florida). Suh is indefatigable; Tuesday after camp he was coated in sweat but didn't seem the least bit winded.

"This camp I've been watching his steps," Mosley said. "He has the same running path, the same stance, the same alignment. His get-off is like … like nothing. Other guys fall in line and tee off of that."

One beneficiary is defensive tackle Jordan Phillips, a rookie who Suh invited to Oregon during the off-season for everything from lifting weights to yoga. "He's our youngest guy, most inexperienced," Suh said. "So we want to push him along and get him into the pace of where all of the other vets are and all of the other guys because he's going to be expected to play." Phillips told the Miami Herald this week that, "I've never seen anybody work the way he does."

This is why the Dolphins paid Suh $60 million in guaranteed money. He's not going to set the sack record, and he's rarely going to touch the ball. He's there to disrupt – to amp up his own side's confidence and reduce the other side's time. He's not a rah-rah leader – for a few moments on Tuesday he was standing by himself, away from his teammates, scanning drills – but he's not silent.

(AP)
(AP)

"If you go out there, not doing your job, he's not going to breathe down your throat," Mosley said, "but if you make a mistake, he's gonna let you know."

Meanwhile, the pressure seeps over the line of scrimmage in more ways than one. It's clear the defense will be playoff-worthy. So there will be less patience with quarterback Ryan Tannehill. There will be less patience with head coach Joe Philbin. There will be less patience for a team that has not made the playoffs during the Obama administration. There is real urgency, ushered in and led by Suh, and it will either hone the offense or wither it.

"We always want to impose our will on the offensive line and create havoc, make it tough for them," Suh said. He wants to push that group to a better place this month, but so far he's just pushing everyone out of his way.