So long, summer. Football is back.
The Miami Dolphins’ 2014 journey begins in earnest Thursday, when the team reports to training camp ahead of the franchise’s 49th season.
The good news: Barring an unforeseen change, there will be no contract-based holdouts. All draft picks have signed, and none of the players entering the final year of their deals skipped spring practices in protest.
The bad: The team won’t be at 100 percent.
Starting center Mike Pouncey will begin camp on the physically unable to perform list. He needed surgery to repair a torn labrum in his hip last month and is expected to miss the start of the season. Though the best-case scenario is he’ll be back in late September, there is now concern he could be shelved for the first half of the season.
A source familiar with the center’s surgery and recovery said it’s likely he will miss four months (from the time of surgery June 23). That would carry the rehab process through September and into late October.
“Eight weeks is probably what we’re looking at,” the source said Wednesday.
The Dolphins have a bye the weekend of Oct. 4-5, so the regular-season’s first eight weeks will cover seven games.
Defensive end Dion Jordan, however, will be with the team. Despite a four-game suspension for failing a PED test, he’s allowed to practice with the team until the season starts.
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