Raheem Mostert is coming off the best season of his NFL career, which included his first Pro Bowl invitation, and he was joined in the Miami Dolphins backfield by dynamic rookie De'Von Achane.
"Yeah, my reaction at the time, I was just like, yeah, whatever it is what it is, it's the same typical thing, draft drama pretty much all the time, regardless of the position, but no, I'm honestly excited," Mostert said via Zoom. "To have Jaylen come in, just another Jaylen coming in on the mix on the team, just excited to have him here and try to coach him up, try to help him out within this offense. And let's see what you can do."
One thing Wright definitely can do is run. Fast.
Speed also is the main attribute for Mostert and Achane, not to mention wide receiver Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, helping give the Dolphins probably the fastest set of skill position players in NFL history.
"I mean, the more the merrier," Mostert said. "That's what I would say, especially in this offense. We could utilize a lot of different attributes, and speed is definitely the attribute that we like to maximize the most of our abilities. So being able to have another guy coming in the mix and bring his attributes and his contributions into the offense and his speed is definitely going to be very beneficial on our part because we can now line up and we could use three backs out there at one point with a receiver and maybe a tight end as well. So, there's a lot of different things that you can do in the offense, especially with guys that have a lot of different speeds."
The biggest question now for head coach Mike McDaniel with the addition of Wright is how to best utilize all that speed at running back.
Mostert definitely will get his touches after setting Dolphins single-season records for rushing touchdowns and overall touchdowns and topping the 1,000-yard rushing mark for the first time in his NFL career.
For his performance, Mostert was rewarded with a contract extension that gave him $3.7 million in guarantees, per overthecap.com, though he has no guaranteed money beyond the upcoming season.
Mostert, though, is focused on the upcoming season with no intention of taking even a step backward from his 2023 performance.
"I just always look at like, everything that I do, just try to beat the standard," he said. "And obviously, the standards, running backs at 30 and above typically start to have that decline. Well, I didn't have any wear and tear early on in my career. So it's a little bit easier for me to just go ahead and discredit that narrative altogether, and just just continue to just do what I do at the highest level and help help his team out and trying to bring home a championship."
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