Why the Dolphins Are Being Extra Careful with Tyreek

Wide receiver Tyreek Hill continues to be sidelined by an oblique injury

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill (10) catches the football during training camp at Baptist Health Training Complex. | Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

DETROIT — Tyreek Hill wound up not practicing for the Miami Dolphins on Wednesday because the team wants to be extra careful and avoid a worse situation, and it's why he likely won't practice again Thursday.

Head coach Mike McDaniel described how the plan change Wednesday after he had told reporters that Hill was expected to do some competitive work against the Detroit Lions on Wednesday.

"If Tyreek didn't have to answer to anybody, he would have practiced yesterday," McDaniel said before practice Thursday. "And I fear we might be talking about an injury that's a lot longer term. He wanted to practice; however, he had to give honest feedback when asked direct questions to our training staff and myself and in that competitive nature he was very much at risk for an injury that would keep him out a lot longer than he's been out right now.

"So I think I'm just happy that our training staff understood the magnitude of further or bigger aggravation of something and was proactive. I don't think you'll see Tyreek based on that, but 100% is on our training staff and myself because he absolutely wants to practice but trusts us enough to know that we're trying to help him."

McDaniel indicated that OLB Jaelan Phillips again would miss practice with an undisclosed injury and revealed that the injury that landed tackle Germain Ifedi on injured reserve was a torn triceps tendon.

Back to Hill, McDaniel had discussed Wednesday the balancing act the team has to do with Hill related to his desire to practice but the need to exercise caution to make sure the injury doesn't get aggravated to cause a lingering effect.

"I think based on his offseason where he was there every day — I think he was at our facility in our five-week time off probably the most of any player," Hill said. "And when you spend time with people, you have a relationship. And I'm counting on the relationship of the medical staff and him because Kyle (Johnston) knows as a head trainer that I'm depending on him to ask the right questions and listen and be able to get in front of something if someone's gonna put himself in harm's way. The good news is instead of just wishing for that relationship to exist, we just put a lot of time and effort into a lot of relationships and that one's included."

McDaniel also had address Hill's injury before the joint practice at Chicago when Hill was kept out, along with missing the preseason opener against the Bears.

"Just for clarity purposes, he's trying to practice and he's working through an oblique that got worse because he was taking every rep that was on the books," McDaniel told the media at Halas Hall in Chicago before the joint practice with the Bears on Friday morning. "So the medical staff had to kind of jump in and right now we're trying to prevent it from being a lingering thing, but he is trying to sneak his way into every rep. He is at the height of his competitiveness right now. So we'll see how we manage that. But I know he's going all day if it's up to him and we're gonna hold them back. We'll see how much we can."

Hill, who didn't practice last Wednesday in Miami, did very little work in what was a light practice Thursday, spending a good deal of time working with a trainer.

Hill last really practiced eight days ago when he ran three long patterns, producing one long gain and two incompletions, but stopped working after running the third of those.