Mike Pouncey not playing against New England

The Miami Dolphins will unveil their final injury report of the week Friday afternoon and the expectation is the team will announce center Mike Pouncey is out for Sunday's game at New England.

Even if the Dolphins don't designate Pouncey as out it doesn't matter. He's not playing Sunday.

Pouncey has been out since Aug. 19 when he suffered a hip injury the team has diagnosed as a fracture. That was not the initial diagnosis of the injury internally, however, and that led coach Adam Gase to say Pouncey's status for the season-opener at Seattle was merely uncertain.

That would have given Pouncey only three-and-one-half weeks to recover from the injury, which obviously was not possible.

Gase has since started saying Pouncey  is "week to week" when asked about the player's prognosis.

The more likely timetable for Pouncey's return would be the week of Oct. 1 which means he would normally miss Sunday and one more game -- the Sept. 25 home opener against Cleveland. The problem is the Dolphins play a Thursday night game four days later, on Sept 29, rather than on Sunday, Oct. 1.

The team might decide that's not enough time to get Pouncey up to speed on his football conditioning after one week or less of practice.

So it is possible the timing of the recovery plus Miami's schedule could cause Pouncey to miss two and possibly three more games and not make his 2016 debut until the Oct. 9 game against the Tennessee Titans.