This is what it sounds like when Tony Sparano identifies a player who delivers maximum effort in games but not so much during practices:

``Look, you're not holding up your end of the bargain today,'' Sparano says. ``You didn't hold up your end of the bargain yesterday. We need more out of you in practice.''

If that short, blunt conversation doesn't work, Sparano will have another career chat with his player. And that one sounds exactly like this:

``Look, this is what you give us on Sunday,'' Sparano says. ``This is what you give us during the week. One doesn't equal the other. Hey, you're not practicing hard and you think you're going to turn it around in the game?''

Those are the exact words Sparano says he uses with players who might deliver for him on game days, but fall short of what he wants, indeed, demands during training camp and regular-season practices.

``I've been involved with those kind of players and we have a couple of those kind of guys on our team now,'' Sparano said after a recent practice. ``The best way from my end to make them understand is to hold them accountable for what happens in practice.

``That sounds easy but it's not easy. You have to be willing to confront and have confrontations with them. I'm not saying this to be a jerk, but I don't really mind confrontations. And I don't want my coaches to mind that.''

MERLING'S A PROJECT

Sparano, intent on keeping his team's inner workings private, doesn't reveal which players don't always practice as hard as they play. He would never identify which players have a reservoir of ability they never tap until game day.

But everyone around the Dolphins knows promising defensive end Phillip Merling is one of those. And Merling is perhaps the most important player the Dolphins must see bloom into a good practice performer because they really need him on game days.

So Merling has been a project for the Miami coaching staff this training camp. He has been, by his own admission, on the receiving end of those Sparano confrontations on more than one occasion.

``I mean, yeah, they're on me every day about that,'' Merling says. ``It's part of having maturity and showing maturity and going out to practice wanting to get better. I have to show that to them more.''

GIVEN STARTING JOB

Merling showed great potential late last season when he was playing as well as any Miami defensive end. He showed enough promise that Miami confidently released starter Vonnie Holliday.

Merling was even good enough that he was handed the starting right defensive end job when training camp began.

But by the end of this camp's first week, Merling's less-than-stellar practices exacted a price. He found himself playing alternately behind either Tony McDaniel or Randy Starks.

The demotion is a message Sparano is not afraid to send.

``We put them back on the depth chart sometimes to prove a point. Yeah, sure,'' Sparano says speaking in general terms. ``We've done that. We've had guys that maybe we think aren't practicing well enough and to send a message you reward someone that is.

``Immediately that sends the message that, `We've told you this once, we've told you this twice, now we're not going to tell you anymore.' So that's been done.''

There are other tools beyond reprimands or rewards that Sparano isn't afraid to use to milk practice effort from his players.

GAME WITHIN GAME

``I constantly try to place challenges for those guys in practice,'' he says. ``I put better people on them.

``Sometimes it brings out the game mentality from them or the competitive mentality from them.''

It sounds like a game within the game that coaches sometimes play. And, of course, it is ultimately for the good of the team as well as the individual player.

``You hope they understand and you get more out of them,'' Sparano says. ``I find when you're honest with them and you confront them that way, you get better results.''

So is it working with Merling? He says he knows coaches expect more from him during practices. He says he's trying to deliver. In short, he says all the right things.

``You have to come out with the mentality of getting better everyday in practice -- same as in the game,'' Merling says. ``I know the quicker you make your reads in practice, the quicker you'll do it in the game.

``I want to show that I can play -- that regardless of whether it's practice or in the game, I can play.''