What are the Dolphins thinking?

The first thing I want to say is I am a long time Miami Dolphin fan and that I am excited to see the Dolphins 2-1. I think that they are putting a good collection of talent around the football and the coach is doing a good job for them to get the players to play for him. In saying all that though am I the only one that noticed that they all of a sudden decided they are not going to be a run team?

If you look at the first game against the Buffalo Bills, the first thing that I noticed was that Chad Henne had 34 pass attempts. Fortunately he had 0 interceptions. Then you look at the rushing attack and Ronnie Brown had 63 rushing yards and Ricky Williams had 62 yards. The thing that you don’t see is that Ronnie Brown only had 13 carries and Ricky Williams had 18 carries. Ronnie Brown was averaging 5 yards a carry and Ricky 3.4 yards per carry. Ronnie Brown’s long run was longer than the longest pass Chad Henne threw all game, so my first question in this game was why did they not run the ball more? Then why did your stud running back Brown not get most of the carries?

Then let’s take a look at the second game of the season against the Minnesota Vikings, and the first thing I will say is Minnesota’s offense might not be clicking but their defense is pretty good. Chad Henne only threw the ball 15 times and had one touchdown pass. Ronnie brown ran for 80 yards and Ricky ran for 30 yards and that was on 13 carries for Ronnie Brown and 10 Carries for Ricky. Ronnie Brown was averaging 6.2 yards per rush, why would you not hand him the ball some more? I do get that they had some fumbles in that game but they were late in the 4th quarter and could that be because you don’t let them get in a rhythm?

The third game for them was against the Jets were Chad Henne had 44 pass attempts, 44! I am not saying I don’t like Chad Henne as a QB, I am actually happy to have him as our QB because he provides an actual threat at QB, but you have Ronnie Brown with 11 carries 54 yards and Ricky Williams with 7 carries 28 yards. That means they both were averaging over 4 yards per carry and I understand they were down 14-0 in first quarter but you don’t all of a sudden become a passing team because you are down in the first quarter.

My point of breaking down these three games is the fact that there have been occasions inside the 5 yard line that they pass the ball instead of trying to rush it in. Have they lost faith in their RB’s? Are they trying to protect Ronnie Brown too much? So far this season Ronnie Brown has had only 37 carries in three games, that is way too few for a RB of his caliber, he should be touching the ball at least 18 times a game. In those 37 carries he has ran for 199 yards giving him an average of 5.4 yards per rush. I understand that the Dolphins are excited to have a QB that can throw the ball around and even more excited they have a big time WR that can catch but you still have to remember who you are, and that is a running team that can be explosive. Ronnie Brown is healthy and you cannot babysit him or try to protect him because then you are costing the whole team by effecting the wins and losses. I do believe Miami will correct this and they are just being cautious at beginning of the season and you will see Ronnie Brown get more carries but if he doesn’t the chances of them making playoffs are not good. So Miami you are my favorite team but we have to correct this, you have two really talented RB’s so use them. Saying I heard that I like that fits the Dolphins well, pass more than we run and we are done, run more than we pass and we will last.