Dolphins center Mike Pouncey declines to address or apologize for ‘Free Hernandez’ hat

Miami Dolphins center Mike Pouncey and his twin brother, Pittsburgh Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey, recently wore "Free Hernandez" hats at a party celebrating their upcoming 24th birthdays, expressing support of former New England Patriots Aaron Hernandez, the twins' former teammate at the University of Florida who has been charged with first-degree murder in Massachusetts.

Maurkice apologized for his actions on Twitter, saying that he recognized "the seriousness of the situation involving my former teammate, and I regret that my actions appear to make light of that serious situation. I apologize to anyone who was offended by my actions."

Thus far, Mike Pouncey has remained quiet about his questionable apparel decision. For the most part, that silence continued on Sunday. Following the first on-field workouts of Dolphins training camp, Pouncey told reporters that he would only "talk about football", Omar Kelly of the Sun-Sentinel reports.

Pouncey would go on to sort of acknowledge that he made a mistake that night, though he did not formally apologize the way his brother has.

"We get paid a lot of money to act a certain way, and that's the way we should be acting," Mike Pouncey said on Sunday.

It is very possible that Pouncey was advised by the Dolphins' public relations department to not allow that particular can of worms to be opened. Pouncey's quasi-apology sounds as though he's parroting what the players were told by coaches and staff in what head coach Joe Philbin described as an "A to Z" team meeting the night before, a session that Philbin said included how to behave on social media, as well as during their interactions with the media.