South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Running game needs to awaken
Dolphins rank last in the league in rushing yards per game
DAVIE — If your team trails the rest of the NFL by a wide margin when it comes to running the football, experimentation isn’t an option.
It is a means of survival, and that appears to be the point the Miami Dolphins (0-4) are at heading into Sunday’s home game against the Washington Redskins (0-5), a battle of the NFL’s bottom dwellers.
Saying the Dolphins are struggling to run the ball would be an understatement, considering they rank last in the NFL in rushing yards per game (51.8) and last in yards per attempt (3.0). And the Dolphins trail every other team by a wide margin.
The team’s run-game issues led
to Kalen Ballage losing reps in Miami’s 30-10 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers two weeks ago as his carries and snaps went to Mark Walton, the former University of Miami standout who had previously been the Dolphins’ third-string tailback.
The Dolphins are intrigued with the potential of Walton, who they signed this offseason after a series of arrests led to the Cincinnati Bengals releasing the second-year veteran.
According to the coaching staff, there’s been an open competition during practice this past week to determine which tailback handles which roles.
Kenyan Drake had been firmly entrenched in his role as the team’s thirddown back, working in all the packages that feature passing plays. Drake leads the team with 31 attempts, which has produced 113 rushing yards.
Miami is looking for someone who can complement Drake, with the vision to find running lanes and make the most of what the offensive line creates.
“I think that Mark has really impressed me. He has impressed me in both running the football and in his pass receiving,” offensive coordinator Chad O’Shea said this past week about Walton, who ran for 2,006 yards on 395 attempts and scored six touchdowns during his three seasons with the Hurricanes. “I think he runs hard. I think he does a good job and takes pride in catching the football. He certainly has a skill set that is unique.”
Oddly, Walton has the exact same skill-set as Drake, who was a passcatching specialist at Alabama before serving in the same capacity during his first three seasons with the Dolphins, and Ballage, who was a pass-catching specialist at Arizona State, where he caught 82 passes in four seasons.
The problem is, Miami tried to make Ballage a workhorse back during his second season with the Dolphins. But his 1.5 yards per carry has been the outcome of his 19 attempts. Only two tailbacks — Buffalo’s Patrick DeMarco and the Los Angeles Rams’ Darrell Henderson — have a lower yards-per-attempt average than Ballage, and they’ve each only had one rushing attempt this season.
When pressed about Ballage’s struggles, Miami’s coaches usually point out that a tailbacks’ success depends on everyone around them doing their job, apparently putting blame on the offensive line, which has struggled.
“He’s got to do a better job, all of them have got to do a better job in all the little areas and details that we talk about all of the time,” running backs coach Eric Studesville said of Ballage, the Dolphins’ 2018 fourth-round pick. But our room is unique in that we’re dependent on a lot of other people to do things, too. I’m not taking responsibility off of him by any stretch. He’s an intensely competitive, focused, prepared player and I have great confidence in him.”
Miami’s offensive line, which will likely use its fifth line combination of starters in five games on Sunday when Jesse Davis returns from his elbow injury, had its most respectable performance of the season against the Chargers before their bye week. In that game, Miami averaged 4.0 yards per carry, and that was with Walton averaging 3.9 yards on 10 attempts running behind the same offensive line.
While 3.9 yards per carry is nothing to celebrate, it leads the team, and is a starting point that can help the offense improve because success rushing the ball can help the offense stay on schedule, making it easier to convert third downs. It also would help decrease the amount of time Miami’s defense is on the field.
Walton acknowledges he’s excited about the possibility of working his way into the game plan, and potentially proving he’ s worthy of NFL carries.
“It’s just showing that all my work [I’ve been] putting in [paid off ],” said Walton, who was a 2018 fourthround pick. “Getting the coaches’ trust around this building to be able to get some carries — multiple carries — in the game, is something that I’ve been looking forward to and [my work] has just been paying off.”