This doesn’t come as much of a surprise after the team said last week that the star receiver “looks great” for the team’s season opener. Hill was reportedly participating in Monday’s practice, but we’ll have a better sense of his availability when the first practice report is released on Wednesday. Assuming he’s active, Hill should profile as a fringe WR1/WR2 against a Colts secondary that allowed the seventh-most passing yards per game last season.

Hill has missed quite a bit of training camp and, obviously, didn’t play in the preseason. The team has been cautious with him after he suffered an oblique injury and will “do some stuff” today. It sounds like he’ll be on the injury report ahead of Week 1, but that we shouldn’t expect him to have problems playing barring a setback.

Howe cites “several high-ranking league sources” in the report. Recent buzz around Hill has not been great and he is now nursing an oblique injury. Still, the Dolphins do not appear to be interested in allowing the 31-year-old wide receiver to play elsewhere and Howe thinks that “there’s reason to believe [the distractions have] been left in the past.” If Hill really is turning a corner in his commitment to football, and the Dolphins can get him back to performing at an elite level, it would be a boon to the offense as a whole.

Hill hasn’t practiced since Wednesday, but we now know the veteran receiver is sitting out due to an oblique injury. While we don’t yet know the severity of his injury, Friday will mark a third-straight missed practice for Hill, who did join the team on the trip to Chicago ahead of Sunday’s preseason game against the Bears. Three straight missed practices would be bad news if this were during the regular season, but for now, we’ll assume the Dolphins are exercising caution with Hill as they aim to have him healthy for the start of the year.