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Renaldo Hill
RENALDO HILL: Thankful To Be Back In Starting Lineup
By ALAIN POUPART
Dolphin Digest Associate Editor
Ronnie Brown's record-breaking performance at New England made it pretty clear that there shouldn't be any more doubt, that he's virtually all the way back after the knee injury he sustained last October.
It also was a big day for Renaldo Hill, who just so happened to have sustained a torn ACL himself on the same October 2007 day when Brown was injured.
Hill's performance at New England on Sept. 21 wasn't one that people will be talking about for weeks like Brown's, but it was a big step nonetheless. Like Brown, Hill was back in the starting lineup for the first time since last October.
And while Brown's return to the Dolphins starting lineup only seemed a matter of time, the same couldn't have been said for Hill. In fact, it was reasonable to wonder whether he would be back with the team at all after last season.
Remember that the Dolphins went out in the offseason and signed unrestricted free agent safeties Keith Davis and Chris Crocker. Davis was expected to come in and become a mainstay on special teams, while Crocker was a starter the last three seasons.
Combine those two acquisitions with the return of Yeremiah Bell and former first-round pick Jason Allen, and Hill suddenly looked like a forgotten man.
"Not knowing where I would return and how I would be, I was expecting that they would bring some people in," Hill said this week. "But I knew the first thing I needed to do was to get healthy. I couldn't do anything until I was able to go out there on my own and compete, and that's all any player asks, is just a chance to go out there and compete. I thank the coaches for allowing me to go out there and that they saw something in me to go out there and that I was able to come in and help this team."
Coach Tony Sparano mentioned a couple of times during training camp that he liked what he was seeing out of Hill.
After the Dolphins gave up some big passing plays in the first two games of the regular season, Sparano decided to put Hill back into the starting lineup.
"As far as what he's done right now, I see an unselfish player, a guy that's committed to this football team," Sparano said. "He'll play his 20 plays on special teams. He'll play 40-50 plays if you tell him to play 50 plays on defense. The guy would just go out there and I think the guy would say, 'Give me another one, give me another one.' He'd stay out there for 70-80 plays if he could. That's what I see. I think he's pretty unselfish. I think he's a good tackler and I think he has his hands on a lot of footballs back there."
Hill got his hands on a pass against New England, but he couldn't come up with the interception. Worse, the ball bounced off Hill's fingers and right into the arms of Wes Welker for a sizable gain for the Patriots.
Hill says he's still having nightmares about that play.
"I still think about it every day, and the guys are not going to let me forget about it and that's a good thing," he said. "They're going to stay on me, and that's the way it should be. But I'm hard on myself, so I'm looking forward to another opportunity to getting my hands on the ball.
"I saw green in front of me. I saw a quarterback and green. I knew I was gone. They say look the ball in and I was ahead of myself there. But you learn from it, so I'm going to learn from it and hopefully next time I'm going to look the ball in and get into my hands first before I'm thinking about anything else."
All in all, it was a pretty solid performance by Hill, who finished with seven tackles. That total was second on the team behind Bell's 10.
Perhaps just as important, Hill continues to feel more and more confident with his knee as the weeks progress. As has been the case with Brown, it has been a long road back for Hill, but he's happy with the destination he's reached.
"When the coaches gave me the starting nod I was prepared and I was ready to go," he said. "It felt good just being out there competing with the guys and helping my team out there, making the signals loud and clear and just trying to get everybody lined up. That's what I'm going to bring to the game.
"I just thank the coaches and thank the players for sticking with me and believing in me, and I just want to go out there and play for those guys."
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