DAVIE — The sun hadn't yet peeked over the horizon Friday, but a new day for the Dolphins' defense had arrived.

Coach Tony Sparano was there to welcome it.

The team's rookie mini-camp was eight hours away, but rookie linebackers Koa Misi, A.J. Edds, Chris McCoy and Austin Spitler were at the training facility at dawn to get a jump on their NFL careers.

"I walked into the meeting room this morning at about 6:30 and there were four linebackers in the room," Sparano said.

"It was kind of neat to watch them watching film and walking around at 6:30 in the morning saying, 'Coach, how do we turn this thing on? What buttons do we push?' "

"I'm not 100 percent sure what's going on or what's exactly happening," Odrick said.

Well this is all fine, but what I want to know is why the sun wasn't up yet by 6:30?

The sun is up at 6:30 in Iowa?? Doesn't come up till 6:31 here.....

But Sparano didn't need long to tell that the rookies are ready to compete.

"We did a lot of homework on these guys," he said. "We did know that some these players were pretty good gym rats."