MIAMI GARDENS — After a week of mild concern over Miami Dolphins running back De’Von Achane’s rib injury, he is primed to play Monday night at the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“Certainly, as long as he doesn’t have a setback in practice, but as it stands now, he’s ready to roll,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Saturday morning before the team traveled to western Pennsylvania to hold a final practice there Saturday night.
Achane has had a positive outlook on playing all week since hurting his ribs in last Sunday’s win against the New York Jets.
McDaniel said Achane could’ve re-entered the game if needed in an emergency, but the Dolphins (6-7) were well in front, winning 34-10 at MetLife Stadium.
Achane said Friday his ribs have progressively felt better since the game. He has experimented with different forms of padded protection under his red, non-contact jersey at practice this past week to see how it feels.
There also is no worry over cornerback Jack Jones’ status for Monday night after he surfaced on the Friday injury report with a new knee injury.
“I’m expecting him to be full-go, too,” McDaniel said. “That’s barring any setbacks.”
Jones would be in line to handle starting cornerback duties opposite Rasul Douglas, the AFC’s reigning Defensive Player of the Week.
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Dolphins outside linebacker Chop Robinson has been nursing an ailing oblique as the Penn State alum gets set to return to the state where he played his college football.
“He’s done a great job managing it,” McDaniel said. “He’s ready to play in the state of Pennsylvania again.”
Miami center Aaron Brewer said in the locker room before the team traveled Saturday that he’s good to go through his ankle injury that had him limited at Friday drills.
Dolphins defensive back and special teamer Elijah Campbell (ankle/knee) could have his status in question after McDaniel called him day to day earlier in the week.
While reserve offensive lineman Andrew Meyer had a good week of practice in his designation for return from his triceps injury, McDaniel deemed him unlikely to be activated ahead of the Monday night game.
Practice in Pittsburgh
The Dolphins opted to travel a day early for the Monday night game, departing from South Florida on Saturday instead of Sunday.
The team is holding a final practice for the week in the Pittsburgh area Saturday night.
“That’s something that we kind of considered in the offseason,” McDaniel said. “The odd part of a schedule is a Monday night on the road. It always feels like you’re so far removed from the last time you were on a football field. Doing it this way allows us our final full-speed practice about 48 hours from kickoff.”
It wasn’t for the purpose of getting acclimated to temperatures in Pittsburgh expected to be in the teens Monday night, although it does help.
“I think it’s an added bonus that we get to get ourselves into the environment,” McDaniel said, “but realistically, that’s something we’ve been thinking about for a while to keep consistency 48 hours from kickoff having their last activity.”
Aside from that, McDaniel said there wasn’t anything else special about the unique practice.
“Preparing for a game, which I think is pretty special in itself,” he said. “We’ll get there, have a couple hours and have a practice under the lights (Saturday) night.”
Watt absence
With stellar Pittsburgh outside linebacker T.J. Watt set to miss Monday night’s game recovering from lung surgery, McDaniel is not taking the Steelers (7-6) for granted on the edge.
“I’m sure they would love for us to take that position lightly,” McDaniel said, “but we watch too much film and they put too much good stuff on tape that they’re still very productive and impactful.
“They do a great job having had a system in place that’s different emphasis maybe, from coordinator to coordinator, but that 3-4 system since I’ve been in the league. And in that process, they’ve done a really good job at knowing what they’re looking for at the edge position and then coaching it. It’s a big deal any time you lose one of your leaders and your best players; however, at that position in particular, you can tell that they see it as a non-negotiable to have depth there that can be very effective.”
Said Dolphins left tackle Patrick Paul on Watt: “I hope he gets well. I saw what happened to him, and that’s really sad. … They’re a very good team, and they’re very good up front, so we’re prepared for (their pass rush).”
Special teams chatter
Dolphins special teams coordinator Craig Aukerman, on Friday, revealed his wife texted him during last Sunday’s game against the Jets that he has to coach his unit better.
He broke down the breakdown covering the punt returned for a touchdown last against New York.
“I thought actually (punter) Jake Bailey hit a really good punt,” Aukerman said. “It had great hang time, the direction was good. We missed a tackle in space and then we didn’t contain it, which we talked about how good that returner was. We’ve got to continue to do a better job of coaching open-field tackling, how to contain things like that. … We’ve got to go down there and make tackles and be able to contain so our net can be really good.”
And the fake punt surrendered?
“We never want to see that,” Aukerman said.
“I’m a perfectionist, like our players are. Obviously, we don’t want that stuff. It’s a combination of everything. … It’s fourth-and-really-long where most teams aren’t going to fake punt, but third quarter, maybe I could’ve been in an eight-man front. Maybe said, ‘Hey, they could still run it,’ or ‘Hey, they got eight guys in the box, maybe we shouldn’t,’ which is what we had pretty much the whole entire game except for one other one. It’s just me probably going into an eight-man front a little bit more to kind of say, ‘Hey, we’re going to watch for your fake.’ “
