In just over three weeks, the Miami Dolphins will open training camp for the 2020 season ahead — and with it face the prospect of building upon a promising “foundation” year in 2020. The Miami Dolphins surprised everyone last season with a 5-4 stretch to finish the season and promptly followed suit by nailing down one of the most prolific college quarterbacks in recent history, plus a slew of new faces to add to the team.
The Dolphins will hold camp this year with fan enthusiasm as high as it has been in quite some time. But amid the restrictions of this offseason due to the ongoing health crisis, can the Dolphins rise to the challenge? We’ll be taking a look at each position group for the Miami Dolphins ahead of the start of training camp and exploring which storylines are most pressing to monitor as the Dolphins look to improve in year two under Brian Flores.
Here are the Dolphins’ key storylines in training camp at the running back position.
Will Kalen Ballage make the roster in 2020?
Simply based on investment, Kalen Ballage should be this team’s third running back. Miami spent a 4th-round pick on Ballage back in 2018 — recently enough that the team may still have hope for the former Arizona State Sun Devil. But if you subtract Ballage’s 75-yard touchdown romp against Minnesota in December of 2018, Ballage’s career with the Dolphins adds up to 109 carries for 251 rushing yards (2.30 yards per carry).
Ballage was well regarded ahead of the 2018 draft for his receiving skills as well, but Ballage struggled in that front in 2019 as well — he logged four drops on 24 total targets last season.
Can he convince the Dolphins to keep him on the roster? Or will the Dolphins have too hard of a time forgetting a terrible 2019 campaign and defer to Myles Gaskin or Patrick Laird as the team’s third running back behind Matt Breida and Jordan Howard?
What will an optimal role look like for Matt Breida?
Breida is NFL Next Gen Stats’ reigning fastest man in football. He’s an absolute blazer who might be Miami’s best catalyst for explosive plays with the ball in his hands. But what will that role look like? Running Breida between the tackles cuts down on his value as a speed threat but the Dolphins’ offensive line doesn’t necessarily have the athleticism to run a lot of the zone concepts that Breida found success with in San Francisco under coach Kyle Shanahan.
Breida hasn’t exactly found overwhelming success as a pass catcher, either — which makes the Dolphins efforts to find a winning formula for him in 2020 a fascinating sub-plot.
The Jordan Howard show?
Here’s the thing about new Miami Dolphins RB Jordan Howard. When you give him the football, he gets the job done. As a rookie, Howard logged 1,313 rushing yards and 5.2 yards per carry on 252 totes of the rock. By the time current Bears head coach Matt Nagy got into the building, the offense was no longer tailored to Howard’s strengths and his yards per carry dropped to 3.7. The back was then on the move to Philadelphia, where he saw his lowest attempts per game (11.9) of his entire career.
The Dolphins are going to run directly at the opposition, which fits Howard’s strengths. With the team likely to implement gap/power concepts between the tackles behind their new mammoth offensive line, Howard has the potential to churn out yards and return to the 1,000 yard club in 2020.
Will Miami feed him between the tackles? Or will a lack of run after the catch threats allow opposing teams to stuff the box?
