If there’s one common thread about the Miami Dolphins running back corps this season is that no one has been reliable.
It sounds harsh but how else to put it when players have been practically handed jobs and done the worst thing a running back can do with the opportunity: Fumbled it away.
So everyone with eyes already understands the Dolphins will try again in 2021. The team that made multiple moves to address the running back position in 2020 will go for a redo in 2021.
But there’s a very important catch.
And that is that the Dolphins understand before they got so many of their running back acquisitions wrong in 2020, the approach behind those acquisitions was absolutely right.
(Admit it, you weren’t expecting that.)
What I mean by this is that as the Dolphins personnel department, led by general manager Chris Grier, tried to address the running back room for this season, there was no significant over-spending.
As some folks, including myself, called for the team to spend a late first- or second-round pick on a running back, the Dolphins went a much more modest direction.
Grier instead spent a fifth-round pick to trade for Matt Breida, signed Jordan Howard to a two-year contract worth $9.75 million deal, relied on 2019 seventh-round pick Myles Gaskin, claimed Salvon Ahmed off waivers, and traded a 2021 Day 3 draft consideration for DeAndre Washington.
And no, the Dolphins haven’t gotten much return from that light investment. They are last in the NFL, averaging 3.6 yards per carry.
That hasn’t made running back coach Eric Studesville super pleased.
“It’s execution and it’s all of us that are involved in it,” Studesville said Tuesday. “We all have a hand in it and we all have to do the right things and keep working for it, but it’s execution at the end of the day. There’s no easy fix. We all have to do our part.”
But you know what?
At least the Dolphins didn’t blow a high pick on trying to address the running game. And they didn’t break the bank, either.
All the guys they counted on this year may or may not be featured prominently in Miami’s running game next year.
So not a lot ventured even if not a lot gained.
And that’s generally the right way to do it with running backs.
Although fans and sofa general managers will argue the Dolphins next year must draft a running back in the first round, most well run NFL teams don’t do that.
Sure, it’s smart to pick a potential generational running back early if he’s available. But those guys are rare.
So most teams wisely wait. Because really good running backs are available later.
And how do they know this?
Study the NFL’s top 20 leading running backs this season.
So 20 of the the NFL’s top 21 rushers this season are running backs. Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson is the exception.
And of those 20 top-rushing running backs, only four were selected in the draft’s first round. Said another way, 16 of the NFL’s most productive running backs now were selected after the first round.
Of the league’s 10 leading running backs, only two were selected in the first round.
The four exceptions drafted in the first round are Ezekiel Elliott of the Dallas Cowboys, Josh Jacobs of the Las Vegas Raiders, Melvin Gordon of the Denver Broncos and Clyde Edwards-Helaire of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Those four guys are good.
But this season guys drafted later have been better.
There’s no first-round running back among the NFL’s top 5 leading rushers this year. In fact, there’s an undrafted running back in Jacksonville’s James Robinson in the top 5 while all the others were selected in the second round.
So the truth is great scouting and selecting trump owning high draft picks when you’re picking running backs.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers added Leonard Fournette this offseason after he was cut by the Jacksonville Jaguars. Well, Ronald Jones, who was picked in the second round out of USC, is Tampa’s lead back ahead of the player selected No. 4 overall in the 2017 draft.
And, by the way, Fournette was a healthy scratch for the Bucs last week.
The NFL’s leading rusher is Derrick Henry who has 1,532 yards and is averaging 5.2 yards per carry. He was drafted in the second round.
The league’s second leading rusher is Dalvin Cook with 1,352 yards and a 5-yard per carry average. He was drafted in the second round.
Nick Chubb? Second round.
Kenyan Drake? Third round. (Not going to say it).
Aaron Jones? Fifth round.
Kareem Hunt? Third round.
NFL teams are finding leading rushers mostly after the first round and they’re finding those guys at Illinois State, Texas El-Paso, Toledo, Memphis, all over the place.
The New England Patriots, by the way, went a different route. They found their running back at Alabama. But they did it among Nick Saban’s reserves and drafted Damien Harris in the third round.
The point here is the Dolphins last offseason probably had the right idea not spending high draft capital on the running back position. Most other teams have been rewarded by waiting until after the first round to find their leading rusher.
Miami’s problem was getting the philosophy right but getting the selections wrong.
Howard was a free agent bust.
Breida is having the worst of his four NFL seasons and is averaging a career-low 3.6 yards per carry.
Gaskin has been the best of Miami’s running backs but even he has been unremarkable, averaging 3.9 yards per carry and missing five games because of a knee injury or while on the Covid-19 reserve list.
None of this is good enough for a team needing a reliable running back to make life easier for rookie quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. So the Dolphins will try again in 2021.
They’d be right to keep their philosophy of not over-spending resources on the running back position. They just need to get the evaluations right next time.
