Dolphins Pumping Brakes on Perry and Bowden

Rookies Lynn Bowden Jr. and Malcolm Perry have obvious playmaking ability, but it could be a while before they can become significant contributors on offense

The Miami Dolphins have two intriguing rookies on offense with former-college-quarterbacks-now-wide-receivers Malcolm Perry and Lynn Bowden Jr. and they clearly have a need for playmakers on that side of the ball, so they should be given an opportunity to contribute, right?

As famed college football analyst Lee Corso became famous for saying, not so fast, my friend.

The problem is that Perry and Bowden indeed are switching to new positions and they're doing to so at the NFL level, which is a tough enough transition in itself.

So while the idea of Bowden and Perry using their speed to make big plays on offense obviously is appealing, it's not quite that simple.

The reality is that both players will need some time.

“I don’t know if I can say they’ll be ready to help or not," offensive coordinator Chan Gailey said. "They might be. We still work with them every day and see what they bring to the table (and) how much they’ve got to learn. Lynn is much further behind right now because he just hasn’t been here for a while. I’m excited about what he might be somewhere down the line, as I am Malcolm. It’s just they haven’t been here long enough and been in the fire, so to speak, to say that we’re going to really try to expand their packages at this point. We’re taking it on a week-by-week basis with where we’re going with that."

As Gailey mentioned, Bowden just recently joined the Dolphins when he came over from the Las Vegas Raiders in a trade that involved a swap of draft picks.

The Raiders thought enough of Bowden's playmaking ability to make him a third-round pick, but they had him work at running back in training camp before deciding to move on from him.

Bowden clearly is eager to get going, as evidenced by a tweet he put out Tuesday.

Again, though, the reality is that Bowden probably isn't ready to contribute and once he does get an opportunity on offense, it'll come little by little.

“He’s been here two weeks, three weeks, somewhere in there," head coach Brian Flores said Wednesday morning. "He’s worked extremely hard. He’s been meeting one-on-one with Grizz (wide receivers coach Josh Grizzard) trying to get caught up. But it’s a rookie, you’re young, you need reps, so we’re trying to get him as many reps in practice as possible, but as far as getting caught up, there’s going to be at best for a young guy in that situation a couple of packages, a couple of things that we’ll make him feel comfortable doing and maybe get him out there. But I’m not sure we’re ready there yet. So we’ll see.”