The Miami Dolphins’ edition of HBO’s “Hard Knocks” — which starts tonight — already has its first drama.
Dolphins coach Joe Philbin has revealed that he has a history of skin cancer — but because he doesn’t pay attention to the dosage for the cream he uses to treat it, his first appearances on the series will show him with an embarrassingly swollen face.
“I must have put on too much,” Philbin said. “The thing swelled up.
“I looked like I got hit by five left-hooks right in my forehead,” he told reporters last week.
“The point of the story is that I had to do an HBO interview, so I’ve got this hat, I can’t even put it on . . . I’ve got this big scab hanging off my lip. So it’s on the thing.”
The unpredictable wide receiver Chad Johnson (formerly known as Ochocinco), who washed out early on “Dancing With the Stars” a few years back and signed with Miami in the off-season, was the early favorite to hog the camera this season.
But, now, word is that it’s Philbin who will end up being the show’s biggest star when the four-week series ends at the beginning of the NFL regular season.
The series — which each season follows one NFL team through pre-season training — settled for the first time on a team with a first-year head coach and an abysmal losing record the season before.
Jets coach Rex Ryan, who memorably starred in the show’s 2010 edition, declined to do it again this year. A number of other teams also declined.
Unlike Ryan, Philbin is neither a yeller nor a heavy curser, according to the film crew, who began taping the series six weeks ago.
But he does bring a drama of his own to the show.
Last winter, after a night of heavy drinking, Philbin’s 21-year-old son, Michael, fell into an ice-covered river in Wisconsin and drowned.
Over the weekend, another NFL head coach, the Eagles’ Andy Reid, lost a son in a similar tragedy.
Within hours of the body of 29-year-old Garret Reid, who had a history of drug abuse, being discovered in a dorm room at Eagles training camp Sunday morning, Philbin and his wife issued a statement calling the news “devastating.”
Whether or not he means it, Philbin has said already he does not plan to watch himself.
A brief preview to the series that has been airing on HBO was enough for him.
“I’m looking and I’m like, ‘Oh, God,’ ” Philbin said of his reaction. “Am I scared?” he asked. “I’m scared of me on TV, yeah.
“I’m not scared of the information or leakage or any of that kind of stuff,” Philbin said about the prospect that rivals may lean too much about his strategy.
“I’m not worried about that one bit, but I am worried about me.”