Monday Dolphins Notebook: Cracraft's Case, the Hill-Apple Saga, and More

Wide receiver River Cracraft returned to the Miami Dolphins practice squad on Monday, but is it a matter of time before he joins the 53-man roster?

River Cracraft returned to the practice squad Monday, again having made his case the Miami Dolphins should just go ahead and sign him to their 53-man roster.

After scoring a second touchdown in two games, Cracraft no longer can simply be elevated from the practice squad to play for the Dolphins in the 2022 regular season because the team already has used up its three maximum elevations with him.

That means either he just continues to practice, he signs with another team or the Dolphins sign him to their 53-man roster, which seems almost like a given at this point the way he has performed.

“It’s the day after the game, so nothing has been communicated, which is totally fine," Cracraft said Monday. "I’m going to keep going about my business. And like I said, everything will fall into place. I’m not worried about it.” 

While Cracraft said the roller coaster of getting cut, signing to the practice squad and going back and forth from the practice squad to the active roster each week has been "nothing to me," his work hasn't gone unnoticed with his teammates.

“Yeah, I mean, you love to see stories like that," tight end Durham Smythe said. "Obviously, he’s a great guy and he’s been through a lot in this league. He’s been cut a lot of times, has been on a few different teams, and he continues to perform for us. He does a lot of things that a lot of people don’t see. I mean, obviously he’s scored two touchdowns now. But he’s getting in there, he’s blocking guys, which a lot of guys in this league don’t like to do at that position. So he does a lot of the dirty work and obviously now it’s cool to see him get some stats in the stat book and a couple touchdowns. But I have nothing but respect for him and how he’s going about his business over the last couple of months.”

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SILENT APPLE WHEN IT COMES TO HILL

Whatever is going on between Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill and Bengals cornerback Eli Apple, whether you want to call it a feud or a disagreement, Apple declined to jump on the opportunity to fire back Monday.

Hill had some pointed comments to and about Apple following the Dolphins' victory against the Buffalo Bills, on Sunday.

Once Tyreek Hill was informed the Dolphins are playing the Bengals Thursday, he immediately started talking trash to Eli Apple #Bengals #Dolphins

"I owe you, boy" pic.twitter.com/FYkTa7c9k8

— Yianni Kourakis (@WPBF_Yianni) September 26, 2022

Apple had media members waiting at his locker for a response Monday, but he declined the invitation, according to ESPN writer Ben Baby.

Bengals CB Eli Apple had a couple of camera scrums waiting for him after Tyreek Hill’s postgame comments yesterday. Apple politely sidestepped the group twice. Bengals face Hill and the Dolphins on Thursday.

— Ben Baby (@Ben_Baby) September 26, 2022

Hill's comments stem from the 2021 AFC Championship Game after Apple stopped the wide receiver short of the goal line when the Kansas City Chiefs tried to score a touchdown on the final play of the first half leading 21-10 instead of kicking a field, a play that loomed large in the Bengals' 27-24 overtime victory.

Apple took a shot at Hill on Twitter after the game.

Even if Apple declines to comment all week, this promises to be a fun matchup Thursday night.

RILEY NO FAN OF PICKLE JUICE

Players on each team were looking for ways to deal with the oppressive heat at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday, and for linebacker Duke Riley that involved drinking some pickle juice — a trick we first became familiar with from Jay Ajayi's days at Boise State.

"Today’s a really big recovery day for us being that we played in a game like that yesterday with a bunch of heat and guys were cramping up," Riley indicated. "I’m drinking pickle juice on the sideline because I’m feeling like I’m about to cramp and I usually don’t, so that’s how hot it was, because I usually don’t even feel that. Nah, I had to that extra during game and at halftime.”

Of course, the next question has to be: Does Riley enjoy pickle juice?

“No, (laughter) I mean, some people do, but I don’t," he said. "Especially like the pickle juice wasn’t even cold. So, I mean, just think about drinking hot pickle juice. Right? It’s already bad but then you drink it hot. But other than that, I think you got to do whatever you got to do to not cramp.”

BILLS COACH EXPLAINS TIRADE

Assuming by now that everybody has seen the video clip of Bills offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey — how shall we say it? — physically expressing his frustration after the conclusion of the game Sunday, the former University of Miami quarterback explained what happened during a media session Monday.

"I'm up in the box, I'm watching my guys down there just give us everything they possibly have in 'em with effort and from start to finish, playing 90 something snaps in the game," Dorsey said. "And it was a playoff atmosphere, a lot of credit to the Miami Dolphins, and obviously, we weren't on the winning end of it, so it's frustrating that I reacted that way and, obviously, that's something that I'm definitely gonna learn from.

"And I don't ever want to take the passion out of the game, we're all on this to win football games obviously for the Bills, for our fans, and we're gonna give them everything we got, but it's something I'm gonna learn from him and make sure let's correct moving forward."

One quick note on the play that ended the game, with Melvin Ingram tackling Isaiah McKenzie in bounds and leaving the time without enough time to line up to spike the ball: Kudos to Xavien Howard for getting upfield and cutting off McKenzie's angle.

Look at the replay and it appears as though Howard likely would have prevented McKenzie from getting to the sideline before bringing him down, which prompted McKenzie to cut inside upfield and gave Ingram the chance to catch him from behind.

ON THIS DAY IN DOLPHINS HISTORY

1992 — Byron Jones is born. So Happy 30th Birthday to the Dolphins cornerback. Jones remains on Reserve/PUP, but he will become eligible to start practicing next week.

2004 — The Dolphins home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers is moved from 1 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. a day after Hurricane Jeanne lands in South Florida. The Dolphins drop a 13-3 decision.

2021 — The Dolphins take a quick 14-0 lead against the Las Vegas Raiders, but end up losing 31-28 in overtime.

THEY SAID IT ...

WR River Cracraft on Tua Tagovailoa's touchdown pass to him: “It was a dart, man. Tua is a dangerous man back there and I was glad to be on the other end of it.”'

G Robert Hunt on veteran LB Melvin Ingram: “Mel is a dawg, man. He’s really good. He’s been good. We all know he’s been good in his league for a while, and he can play, man. He can just flat out play. Lining up against him in camp, you got to be with it because he can do a lot of different things. He can power, he can rush to like get the edge. He’s a dangerous rusher, man. He’s good. He’s really good.”

LB Duke Riley on Tua's singing ability: “I’m telling y’all right now, he can sing his tail off. (laughter) Tua is a funny, man. Y’all don’t even know. I wish everybody knew. I’m just fortunate enough that I know. He can sing and he can sing any song. I’ve seen his dude sing some crazy stuff that you would never even know. And it just lets you know how good his energy is and how positive he is and how much of a great person he is and how his family raised him. I love Tua, man. I love Tua.”

LB Jerome Baker on the defensive effort against Buffalo with a lot of yards allowed but not that many points: “As a defensive player, of course, we’re not happy about that. If we get off the field more, we have less snaps and it’s just a trickledown effect. If we just lock in and do a little better, it’d be easier on a lot of us. So am I happy with the performance we had? It’s whatever. At the end the day, we won. So that’s all that matters. We definitely got to just play better Thursday. It’s going to be a good challenge for us.”