Dolphins rushing attack could spring them into record books on Sunday

Written by Matthew Cannata | Twitter: @PhinManiacs
In 2013, the Miami Dolphins rushing attack was pretty bad and that’s probably putting it nicely. In the offseason, general manager Dennis Hickey and head coach Joe Philbin set out to re-make the entire line, including most of the back-ups. However, they did it with an emphasis on pass protection. That’s why it was so surprising on Sunday to see the Dolphins rush for a combined 191 yards.

Head coach Joe Philbin gave a lot of credit to his coaching staff for putting players in position to succeed.

“I think Bill [Lazor, offensive coordinator], and John [Benton, offensive line], and Jack [Bicknell, Jr., assistant offensive line] deserve a lot of credit. We knew going into the game that we wanted to run a lot of inside zone. I thought we had the pace going pretty well in the second half. We used some no huddle during that time period…I thought our guys took control of the line of scrimmage. Again, blocking is blocking, there’s good fundamentals.”

With those kind of results, it sets up the Dolphins to enter the franchise record books if they rush for 155 total yards against the Buffalo Bills. If they do, they will crack the top five in team history for rushing yards in the first two games of a season. In 2002, the Dolphins rushed for 345 yards in the first two games of the season and the team hasn’t beaten that since.

In 1972, the Dolphins rushed for 470 yards in their first two games and in 1978, they rushed for 446 yards. In 1982 and 1983, they rushed for 352 yards and as we just mentioned, 345 yards in 2002. While it’s highly doubtful the Dolphins will rush enough to surpass the 1978 team, they have a very realistic chance to take sole possession of third place in franchise history on Sunday against the Bills.

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