To the surprise of few, Dolphins fans are already fed up with Chad Henne. And having gone through the roller coaster of almost acquiring an upgrade at quarterback, they are beginning to get testy.

At the Dolphins' open scrimmage at Sun Life Stadium Monday night Henne received the kind of ire not seen since the Jay Fiedler era.

The crowd of 10,109 booed Henne whenever he failed to complete a pass. Even incompletions that weren't Henne's fault were booed by the crowd.

The cherry on the acrimony sundae, though, came towards the end of practice, when a "We want Orton" chant erupted after a deflected Henne pass.

This may be the first time an NFL quarterback was booed at any practice, much less the fourth practice of the season following a lockout that prevented teams from working out together over the summer. Even Dan Marino missed passes in practice.

The Dolphins were thisclose to acquiring Kyle Orton, the Denver Broncos' incumbent starting quarterback, last week. But talks broke down when Denver asked for more compensation than Miami was offering and Orton made clear he wanted a lucrative long-term contract extension as part of any trade.

So instead of poaching Orton from the Broncos, the Dolphins signed free agent Matt Moore, last seen getting benched by the worst team in the NFL in 2010, instead.

Not that any of this matters. If the Dolphins have made one thing clear in the past offseason, it is that they do not think Henne's play has been as detrimental to the offense as the fans do.

The Dolphins passed up a chance to draft a quarterback in April's NFL draft, and balked at signing any of the starting-caliber free agent quarterbacks available this offseason.

Some incomplete passes might be enough to set off the fans at Sun Life, but until Henne starts screwing up in a major way during actual games, he won't be going anywhere.

That is, unless the team can still finagle a deal for Orton, in which case Henne might be manning the sideline clipboard in 2011.