There has been serious concern about Mike Pouncey coming back from the hip injury that cost him half the preseason and the regular-season opener at Seattle. Indeed, it is possible Pouncey, who reportedly is nursing a small fracture to his surgically repaired hip, might miss a week or two more.

That's the bad news.

The good news is no one is panicking because replacement Anthony Steen has been, well, outstanding.

Steen, signed to the Miami practice squad last November when he was basically out of football after being cut by Arizona in September, is a first-year player who made his regular-season debut on Sunday against Seattle. And that debut, coming on the heels of a solid preseason, was very, very good.

How good did Steen play?

Well, if you trust the ProFootballFocus.com metrics, you can say Steen had a better opening day that all but six NFL centers. That's because PFF gave Steen the seventh best grade among 32 centers graded.

Steen's 79.8 grade was better than ...

New York's Nick Mangold.

Carolina's Ryan Kalil.

Dallas's Travis Frederick.

Buffalo's Eric Wood.

Baltimore's Jeremy Zuttah.

And Pittsburgh's Maurkice Pouncey. Among others.

And I just listed some excellent NFL centers.

Steen was better run-blocking than pass-blocking. You can see that on the 2-yard touchdown Ryan Tannehill scored Sunday on a quarterback draw. While left guard Laremy Tunsil and left tackle Branden Albert double-team one man and drive him back, Steen bulldozed Seattle defensive tackle Jarran Reed one-on-one and drove him into the end zone as well.

Ironically Reed was a teammate of Steen's at Alabama a couple of years ago.

Tannehill ran behind Steen into the end zone.

Steen, who moved from guard to center this preseason, received the highest grade of any Dolphins offensive starter on Sunday, per PFF.

And so what does this mean?

Well, the Dolphins are showing that under Mike Tannenbaum, Chris Grier and Adam Gase, they want to often use caution about how quickly they put players recovering from injuries back on the field. As in the case with DeVante Parker, for example, the Dolphins would rather hold the player back and make sure he's healthy than expose him to aggravating an injury.

With Pouncey, a leader in the locker room, the temptation might be to push him to get back. But because Steen is so far playing at a high level, the Dolphins can afford to wait until Pouncey is fully recovered before putting him back on the field.

(By the way ... kudos to the Dolphins personnel department for finding Steen and the Miami coaching staff for developing him into a center. This is a feel-good story all around.)