Last week, Dolphins running back Knowshon Moreno said he thought he was about four more weeks away from being “good” in his return from the dislocated elbow he suffered in the second week of the regular season.
On Monday, though, Moreno went through practice with the team while wearing a large brace to protect the elbow. It was an informal practice for a team coming off their bye week, so Wednesday and the remainder of the week will give us a better idea of just how close Moreno is to beating his prediction by several weeks.
Coach Joe Philbin said those days would also provide the team with a better idea of how Moreno can play with that bulky brace because the team won’t put him out there if they don’t think he can do everything required of him.
“I think it’s just a matter of him getting used to playing with it in practice. He’s got to get a feel of it and carrying the ball with it, pass protection,” Philbin said, via the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “Obviously we just can’t have him in there when we are running the ball or free release him all the time. Those are things we take the practice week to figure out.”
If Moreno is ready to return, the Dolphins will have to sort out how to reintegrate him into the offense without knocking Lamar Miller off the stride he’s found in the last couple of weeks. For a team that entered the year facing doubts about how well they’d run the ball, there are worse problems to have.