Bold Prediction For Lamar Miller

A lot has been said about Ryan Tannehill’s continued improvement over his first three seasons in the NFL. However, there is another player on the team that was selected in the same 2012 draft with Tannehill who has also improved each season. That player, drafted in the 4th round out of the University of Miami, is running back Lamar Miller.

In his rookie season Miller played sparingly with 51 rushing attempts for 250 yards, a 4.9 YPC average, and 1 touchdown. In 2013 he played in every game racking up 177 attempts for 709 yards, a 4.0 YPC average, and 2 touchdowns, while managing 26 catches for 170 yards. Last season the Dolphins began with Knowshon Moreno starting, but he went down in the second game of the season. In response, Miller stepped up, became the number one back, rushing for 216 times with 1,099 yards, a 5.1 YPC average and 8 touchdowns, while pulling down 38 passes for 275 yards and a touchdown. The one black eye on Miller’s statistical resume from last season was that he fumbled the ball 3 times and each time the opponent recovered.

Coming into this season, with an all important contract year, Miller is the undisputed number one running back on the team. Most sports gambling fans are very aware that when players are in their final year of a contract they give extra effort, and quite often, they have a career season! You don’t have to look any further than last season when DeMarco Murray blew away the competition for the rushing title by piling up 1,845 yards and 13 touchdowns. For his “extra- effort”, he cashed in during free agency with a $40 million dollar deal from the Philadelphia Eagles.

Last season Miller finished with the 10th most rushing yards in the league and had the fewest amount of rushing attempts of anyone in the top 15 rushers. He also was tied for the second best yards per rushing attempt of any running back in the entire NFL with a 5.1 yards per carry. If the Dolphins (fingers crossed) decide to give Miller the ball more than his average of 13.5 times a game, then I truly think Miller could finish the 2015 season as one of the top 5 rushers in the league. Coach Philbin recently said to the media that ‘he has never told anyone on the coaching staff to limit Miller’s carries’, and he ‘has no problem giving Miller the ball more often’.

If you take the top 10 rushers from last year and average together their rushing attempts you would get an average of 270 carries. That means that Miller had 54 carries less than the average of the top 10 backs. If he had been able to get those extra carries – and keep up his average yards per attempt of 5.1 yards – then he would have had 1,377 rushing yards, which would have been good for 2nd best in the entire league. Yes, I know there are a lot of “IF’S” in that scenario, but those extra 54 carries would have only needed an extra 3 carries a game, which is a very doable considering it’s .3 YPC less than the 40^th ranked RB, NYG Andre Williams. I know he will have more competition for carries this season with Ajayi and Williams in the mix. But, the fact is that Miller has been training extremely hard this off-season, putting on a noticeable 15 extra pounds in muscle, and he is playing for a big payday. So with that being said, he is focused on being even better this season, and Miami should milk him for all he is worth – because he might not be a Dolphin next season.

The way I see it, the only thing stopping Miller this season from being a top 5 back is whether or not the coaching staff is willing to feed him the rock more often. Typically, good running backs get better as they get more carries throughout the game, so Miami would be wise to ride Miller when he is hot and see what kind of caliber of back he really is. I’ll even go out on a limb and say that Miller could be a sneaky pick for NFL’s leading rusher this season, Acesportsbook.com has him at +2000 to win the rushing title! What does the rest of the Miami Dolphins news fans think are reasonable expectations for Miller this season?