The Crazy Numbers About the Dolphins Running Game

Forgive the easy pun, but the Miami Dolphins are on quite a run.

The Dolphins are on a four-winning streak as they head into their Week 15 Monday night matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and it's not a great mystery that the biggest reason for this late-season surge is the running game.

The numbers tell the story of what right now is the most impressive Dolphins running game since the Wildcat days, and in some ways going all the way back to the glory days of the 1970s.

THE STAGGERING RUSHING STAT

In the course of their winning streak — featuring victories against the Buffalo Bills, Washington Commanders, New Orleans Saints and New York Jets — the Dolphins have gone from having their 25th-ranked rushing offense in the NFL to the No. 8 run game.

That's come with four consecutive games with at least 160 rushing yards, which is getting into some pretty rare territory for the Dolphins.

That particular four-game streak, for example, is the team's longest since 1977 — yes, 48 years ago — when the team also did it four consecutive times on its way to a 10-4 finish.

The franchise record for those wondering is nine consecutive games with at least 160 rushing yards, and it happened (no shock here) in 1972 when the Dolphins produced the first and only perfect season (regular season and playoffs) in NFL history.

The longest streak since that 1977 season had been three games, which came in 2002 when Ricky Williams led the NFL with a franchise-record 1,853 rushing yards in his first year with the Dolphins.

Prior to this crazy four-game stretch, the Dolphins' season high for rushing yards was 141, which came against the Atlanta Falcons. And, no coincidence, the Dolphins also won that game.

The season high for rushing yards in a loss was 137 against the L.A. Chargers in Week 6, a game the Dolphins lost on a last-second field goal and easily could have (maybe should have) won.

So, yeah, obviously rushing for 160 yards or more is conducive to winning games — in case that already weren't totally obvious.

The total of four games with 160-plus rushing yards is tied for the highest since 2012 when the Dolphins had five of those with Reggie Bush at running back, rookie Ryan Tannehill at quarterback and Joe Philbin in his first year as head coach. The Dolphins also had four 160-plus-yard rushing performances in 2023 when the team finished 11-6 and was sixth in the NFL in rushing offense.

Then there's the issue of volume, with the Dolphins also on a streak of four games with at least 30 rushing attempts.

That's the team's longest since 2009 when the Dolphins had a streak of five games in the second year of the Wildcat formation with Ricky Williams taking shotgun snaps, often with fellow running back Ronnie Brown in motion across the formation.

So, yeah, the Dolphins most definitely are a running team these days.

More importantly, they've been a successful running team over the past month.