The Miami Dolphins will be debuting a new-look running game in Week 9 against the Arizona Cardinals. We knew that at the beginning of the week when it was announced that RB Myles Gaskin will miss several weeks with an MCL sprain. But the depths of Miami’s rushing overhaul may extend beyond just seeing Gaskin resting to heal his knee — because he wasn’t the only Miami Dolphins running back to not practice yesterday for the team.
Also not participating? RB Matt Breida, who is nursing a hamstring injury and potentially may not play either. That’s the bad news. If you’re looking for a silver lining, the Dolphins had every other eligible player participate in at least a limited role at practice on Wednesday, including offensive tackle Austin Jackson.
Injury updates on #Dolphins top two running backs: Myles Gaskin (knee) and Matt Breida (hamstring) both did not practice Wednesday
Here’s the full report pic.twitter.com/PaGp6Nl4R6
— Josh Tolentino (@JCTSports) November 4, 2020
But the lingering questions about Miami’s backfield make the trade for DeAndre Washington an obvious move and make forecasting how Miami will look to attack the ground game a major mystery for Week 9 against the Cardinals. Even if Breida is able to dress and play, will he be at 100% and be capable of shouldering the workload as Miami’s feature back? Or will the Dolphins need to lean into additional players, such as Jordan Howard or Patrick Laird, to shoulder the load. If Miami is forced to look beyond Breida, look for Patrick Laird to take some significant snaps — he’s already been a featured option in some of Miami’s 20 personnel groupings with two running backs in recent weeks.
The good news? The rushing offense can’t get any worse than what we saw last week against the Rams. And if there’s no where to go but up against the Arizona Cardinals, then Miami will get to use this time to try to assess what else they have for the ground game — and more importantly be able to freely interchange the pieces of the puzzle until they find an option that seems to click.
Keep an eye on Breida’s status for the rest of the week. It will say quite a bit about what depths Miami will have to go on Sunday to attack the Cardinals on the ground.
