At the beginning of this offseason, Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores lamented that, amid the reduced salary cap for free agency in 2021, ‘you can’t always get what you want’. And for the Dolphins, they’ve done pretty darn good to navigate those restrictions to make upgrades to key spots along the roster and make sure they’re a more complete roster and competitive football team in 2021 than they were in 2020.
But as the next line in that famous song by The Rolling Stones goes?
“You can’t always get what you want,
But if you try sometime you find you get what you need.”
And what Miami Dolphins fans need at this point in time is a little more love for one of the incumbent starters from last year’s team who didn’t see the team go out and draft a replacement in the early rounds of the 2021 NFL draft, running back Myles Gaskin. Gaskin’s production is skewed on account of him missing 6 games on the season, but in 10 games played Gaskin quite nearly went on to produce 1,000 yards from scrimmage and was reliable in all phases of the game.
And that reliability earned Gaskin some recognition from Cynthia Frelund of NFL.com, who has assembled a list of the most undervalued player on each team in the AFC. Gaskin was her clear choice for Miami.
“Use in the passing game — both as a target and pass blocker — drives Gaskin’s productivity results. Next Gen Stats show he averaged 2.0 receiving yards per route run last season (third-most among RBs who ran at least 150 routes). It sounds weird to say, but there are only about 15 running backs who add consistent (and high) production in the passing game as a target and as a blocker, and Gaskin rates eighth in passing production at the position. Furthermore, his +35 rush yards over expected were the most on the Dolphins in 2020.
Another player who shows up strongly in my model is OLB Andrew Van Ginkel, who amassed 5.5 sacks in fewer than 500 snaps. In the first 3 yards traveled, Van Ginkel had a top-seven speed on the pass rush. And his per-snap win share on rushing downs ranked eighth-highest at his position.” — Cynthia Frelund, NFL.com
It felt like nearly everyone wanted to see Miami make a splash and secure a big-name running back. But as Frelund points out, Gaskin’s production at the position, particularly in the passing game, holds plenty of value. So while everyone wanted a new name in the backfield, we may just find that more Gaskin is what the Dolphins actually need.