The Fish Tank: Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep

Jeff Darlington is an Emmy-nominated national television reporter with ESPN, best known for his work on NFL Countdown and SportsCenter. Prior to joining the World Wide Leader, Darlington worked with NFL Network and NFL.com but he cut his teeth in the National Football League as a beat writer for The Miami Herald covering the Miami Dolphins. In The Tank, Darlington shares why he loved covering Nick...

For the first time in history, current players from the Miami Dolphins roster dive in The Tank! After OJ and Seth recount some of their favorite training camp memories, they are joined by four different active Dolphins players. Pro Bowl long snapper, John Denney, is first to the mic and tries to clear up some stories Jason Taylor shared in the previous episode. Denney is followed by another specia...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Once considered an undersized project from Akron University, Jason Taylor went on to become the most storied defender in Miami Dolphins history and as dynamic of a defensive playmaker that the National Football League had ever seen. As a pass rusher, Taylor shattered the Dolphins sack record and finished his career ranked sixth (now seventh) all-time in league...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Season One comes to a close as OJ and Seth reflect on more classic Fish Tank moments. There is no reason to dig through your archives when the guys have done it for you! Do you remember when Ronnie Brown had to carry Ricky Williams? And we don’t mean during a game! How about Troy Stradford taking on Bruce Smith, or Louis Oliver recalling a special gift Bryan Co...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Troy Drayton enjoyed a standout career at Penn State University from 1989-1992, teaming with our very own OJ McDuffie. A second round selection of the Los Angeles Rams in the 1993 NFL draft, Drayton played three seasons and three games for the Rams before Jimmy Johnson traded for the tight end in 1996. Troy would go on to play in Miami through the 1999 season a...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   You’ve heard him in the background of nearly every one of our episodes, but DJ Prec isn’t just the producer of The Fish Tank. The artist formerly known as Sean Todd was a member of the Miami Dolphins Football Operations staff from 1995 to 2000, working for the likes of Don Shula, Jimmy Johnson and Dave Wannstedt. In the Tank, Prec steps from behind the board to...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Making a return to The Tank, former Dolphins Security Chief, Stu Weinstein, provides insight as to how he helped the team prepare for drafts for decades, providing hundreds of player background checks. Stu sheds some light on what he told coaches and personnel men about players including Randy Moss, Channing Crowder, Cecil Collins and even our very own OJ McDuf...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   A South Florida native, Calvin Jackson was a member of the storied Dillard High School football program that sent five of its star players to Auburn University in the early 90’s. Jackson played just two college seasons, helping lead the Tigers to an 11-0 record in 1993 before leaving Auburn to pursue his NFL career. He landed with his hometown team and became a...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   A first round draft choice by the Green Bay Packers out of North Carolina in 1998, Vonnie Holliday enjoyed a 15-year career in the National Football League before retiring at the conclusion of the 2012 season. Vonnie spent five years in Green Bay and two seasons in Kansas City, but it was former Miami Dolphins head coach Nick Saban who brought the defensive end...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Following a standout career at Auburn University, Ronnie Brown was selected by the Miami Dolphins as the number 2 overall pick in the 2005 NFL Draft, making him then-Dolphins Head Coach Nick Saban’s first-ever draft choice. Brown played six seasons in Miami, rushing for 4,815 yards (career-high 1,008 in 2006), averaging 4.3 yards per carry, and 36 touchdowns, i...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   From the moment he was featured on the Luther “Luke” Campbell track “Scarred,” Trick Daddy instantly became a staple in the Miami music scene. After singing to Slip-N-Slide records, Trick released back-to-back albums, receiving national acclaim and climbing to the third spot on the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart with “Nann” featuring Trina. Hits including “Shu...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Troy Stradford was a fourth-round draft choice of the Miami Dolphins in 1987. Only 5-9, the running back out of Boston College made up for a lack of size with tremendous speed, vision and confidence. After beating out former first-round draft choice Lorenzo Hampton to become Miami’s starting running back, Stradford’s performance far exceeded his draft position...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   When the Miami Dolphins traded into the second round of the 1998 draft to select Patrick Surtain out of Southern Mississippi, they landed a player who, along with Sam Madison, would form the most formidable cornerback duo in team history. Surtain would go on to play seven seasons in Miami, the last three of which concluded with a trip to the Pro Bowl. Pat haule...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Harvey Greene is a sports public relations legend having worked with the likes of George Steinbrenner, Don Shula, and World B. Free. Dolphins’ fans know Harvey best, of course, for his nearly 30 years of service as the team’s VP of Media Relations, where he not only worked with Shula, but Dan Marino, Jimmy Johnson, and hundreds of other Dolphins greats during h...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Tony Nathan broke racial barriers at Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, Alabama before helping legendary coach Bear Bryant and the Crimson Tide capture a National Championship in 1978. The following year, he was a third-round draft choice of the Miami Dolphins and made an immediate impact, garnering First Team All-Pro honors as a rookie kick returner. Nathan p...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Mark Duper was selected by the Miami Dolphins in the second round of the 1982 NFL Draft. A year later, he was joined by Dan Marino and Mark Clayton, and the trio never looked back, lighting up the Dolphins record books for the next decade. Duper played 11 seasons for the Dolphins and was selected to the Pro Bowl on three occasions while also garnering two All-P...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Mark Clayton landed in Miami as an unheralded eighth-round draft choice in 1983, a member of the same draft class as Dan Marino. Following a quiet rookie season, Clayton joined Marino in re-writing NFL record books, hauling in 18 of Marino’s 48 touchdown passes to set a new single-season league record. Clayton paired with Mark Duper to form the popular “Marks B...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Adewale Ogunleye signed with the Miami Dolphins as an undrafted rookie free agent defensive end in 2000 after a severe knee injury derailed a promising college career at Indiana. Once healthy, Ogunleye proved he was an absolute steal, starting opposite Jason Taylor and registering 9.5 sacks in 2002 and an AFC leading 15 sacks in 2003. Following a trip to the Pr...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   The 1984 Heisman Trophy runner-up as a tailback for Ohio Sate, Keith Byars was selected in the first round of the 1986 NFL draft by the Philadelphia Eagles. Byars was a key contributor on the Eagles offense for seven seasons before joining the Miami Dolphins as a free agent in 1993. In three-plus seasons with Miami, Byars was both productive and popular, perhap...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   A high school quarterback in Jonesboro, Louisiana, Marty Booker made the switch to wide receiver at the University of Louisiana-Monroe. The move paid off as Booker was drafted by the Chicago Bears in the third round of the 1999 NFL Draft. Five seasons and one Pro Bowl appearance later, he (along with the Bears third round draft choice) was traded to Miami in ex...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   This Halloween, The Fish Tank dressed up as the Five Reasons Sports flagship show. Taking a break from The Fish Tank Studios, OJ and Seth talk current Miami Dolphins with Five Reasons founder, Ethan Skolnick, as well as Sun-Sentinel beat writer, Omar Kelly. Ethan and Omar did share their own “tales from the deep” as Ethan fondly remembers his appearance on The...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Now at the midway point of the NFL season, OJ and Seth decided to highlight some of their favorite moments in Fish Tank history. Listen as Zach Thomas recalls a bet turned near death experience, Mike and Maurkice Pouncey prove that nothing is impossible for their former Gators quarterback, Tim Tebow, Oronde Gadsden gets questionable scheduling information from...

Nicknamed “The Hawk,” Andre Dawson’s 21-year baseball career was the thing of legends. An 8-time National League MVP and 8-time Gold Glove winner, Dawson was named the league’s Rookie of the Year in 1977. A decade later, he earned the Most Valuable Player Award after leading the league with 49 homeruns and 137 RBI in 1987. Dawson, who played for the Montreal Expos, Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox and...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Following a standout career at Notre Dame where he helped lead the Fighting Irish to victory over Florida State in “The Game of the Century,” Shawn Wooden was selected in the sixth round of the 1996 NFL Draft by Jimmy Johnson in his first season with the Miami Dolphins. In Miami, Wooden made the move from cornerback to safety and would go on to play nine season...

Miami Dolphins Tales From The Deep   Louis Oliver enjoyed an All-American career as a safety at the University of Florida, while also earning two-time SEC Academic Honor Roll honors. The Dolphins selected Oliver in the first round of the 1989 NFL Draft, reuniting him in the defensive backfield with his former Gator teammate, Jarvis Williams. Oliver went on to play seven of his eight professional s...