Miami’s run game will be a big key again this season for success
The Miami Dolphins must run the football much better than they did last Season if they want to be a good team. NFL football has moved to a more physical style of offense for a few years now. The Phins romance with ‘fun-ball’ passing is going hard against the grain of the NFL offensive ‘sweat spot’ of pass balance. They need to adjust to keep from falling behind.
This offseason, Miami added OL James Daniels and blocking TE Paroah Brown in Free Agency, and drafted Jonah Savaiinaea, so they invested in the blocking. But these players along with veterans Alex Ingold, Aaron Brewer, and Austin Jackson with 2nd Year player Patrick Paul must make it happen.
I’ve said it for many seasons now, but so goes our blockers, so goes the Phins–and it’s proven out year after year. You can bet with the best pay per head that I don’t expect this to change.
Miami must rush well beyond 1st Down & outside
Even if Mike McDaniel moves off his pass happy ways, it will be more about where and when we run the football as having a nice rush total at the end the of the season.
In 2023, the Dolphins ranked 6th in total yards with 2300 yards, but breaking it down, nearly 1600 yards came on 1st down, 600 yards on 2nd down, and only 80 yards on 3rd down. This isn’t what you want to see in your run game. The inability that season to run inside or on 2nd and 3rd Down is part of the reason why despite the grand total, it wasn’t a successful rushing season, especially when you consider 830 yards were accrued in 3 games.
Last season, Miami didn’t have the right production or the right run dispersion. We ran outside 15th most on 2nd Down but only had the 23rd most yards. On 3rd down we were worse, ranking 15th in attempts and 28th in production. Our efficiency on where we are supposed to run best floundered. Rushing inside was even more dismal ranking 27th in attempts and production with only 700 yards running inside all season. A bigger problem is team played bend but don’t break and eased us into the Red Zone where we hit a brick wall too much and it cost us plenty of points.
If Miami spent wisely and McDaniel calls right, then we should expect to see growth in our run game. If not, something is very wrong somewhere.
I don’t know how well Miami will run the football this season, all I know is they better do much better than last season or it could get ugly! Let’s hope this team finally gets physical on offense. Go Phins!!!
