Dolphins Review: Ollie Gordon II vs. Jaylen Wright

Watch him get downhill and run through this Detroit defender, who beat Chris Myarick’s block a little too easily on the front side of this play. This is the type of running style the Dolphins have been missing under Mike McDaniel. 

Gordon is listed at 6-2, 225, and when he was playing his best at Oklahoma State, he broke a lot of tackles. He racked up an absurd 1,056 yards after contact while averaging 3.71 yards after contact per rush and forcing 68 missed tackles in 2023. 

The dropoff in Gordon’s play from 2023 to 2024 has been covered quite a bit, and one of the reasons he struggled so much is that he lost a lot of his “wiggle.” Gordon has never been an overly shifty player, but he does have some quickness for a bigger back. 

Watch him make these two Lions defenders miss in the backfield and turn this run into a positive gain. Again, this isn’t a strength of his game, but this does look closer to the 2023 version of Gordon. 

If Gordon wants to make it onto the field in situations that are not just short-yardage, he’ll have to prove he can block and catch passes. The Dolphins aren’t afraid to put Achane in the slot on third down, so there is some room for Gordon to get on the field. 

Gordon has three catches this preseason, including the third-down conversion shown above. He’s got soft hands for the position and just enough juice to beat linebackers. 

As for pass blocking, he’s gotten just two reps thus far, but his best one was against the Bears. 

If Gordon wants to supplant Wright in the offense, he’ll need to continue having strong showings in these areas. 

What’s Up With Wright? 

The stat line wasn’t pretty for Wright on Saturday, and the film isn’t much better from a team perspective. To be fair to Wright, he didn’t get nearly the same opportunities Gordon got, and the blocking in front of him wasn’t ideal. 

The play where Wright fumbled is the perfect encapsulation of Wright’s day. 

Tanner Conner gets blown off the line by the linebacker who ends up punching the ball out, and Kion Smith loses his block practically immediately. Unless Wright turns into prime Adrian Peterson, this play isn’t going anywhere. 

However, that’s no excuse for Wright to lose the football. Conner made the recovery, but the Dolphins were in the red zone, so this could have cost them points in a big spot. 

To Wright’s credit, he does have a leg up on Gordon when it comes to pass protection. He just has more experience working in the Dolphins’ system, and he was a quality pass protector in college at Tennessee. 

Final Word on RB2 

Gordon deserves a ton of credit for even making this a conversation. He struggled at Oklahoma State last season, going from a consensus top-50 pick to a sixth-rounder. 

If you’re going off who is running the ball better in the preseason, Gordon probably has the upper hand. Yes, he’s been more productive, but he’s also just running harder than Wright at the moment. 

That said, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel was asked about what he wanted to see from Gordon not too long ago, and he gave a long answer that centered around Gordon needing to be better without the ball in his hands. 

He needs to run better routes with better timing and continue to grow as a pass protector. 

Given Wright’s experience in the offense, he should be further along in this process than Gordon. It’s difficult to truly judge these things because we don’t know exactly what the Dolphins’ protections calls and route concepts are supposed to look like. 

The most likely outcome is that Wright keeps his RB2 spot at the start of the season but has a somewhat short leash. If he hasn’t ironed out the things that kept him off the field last year, don’t be surprised to see Gordon overtake Wright sooner than later.  

In the immediate future, Gordon should be an asset in short-yardage situations.