If someone told you at the beginning of the year that Miami’s leading rusher by the end of the year was going to be quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick in 13 starts, what would you have said? Would you have taken that bet? Probably not, because it sounds completely insane.
And yet here we are with three games left to play and Ryan Fitzpatrick just 15 yards out of the team lead in rushing yards for the season. With 186 yards, Fitzpatrick trails former Dolphins RB Mark Walton, who was cut in the midst of his 4-game suspension for reportedly being involved in a domestic violence incident. Fitzpatrick’s next closest competitor? He leads RB Kenyan Drake by 12 yards — and Drake hasn’t played a down in Miami since October after being traded to Arizona.
The next man up? RB Kalen Ballage’s 135 yards. Ballage went on injured reserve several weeks ago. The next active Dolphin on the team’s rushing leaders list is RB Patrick Laird, who has 84 yards on 31 carries this season, leaving him over 100 yards behind Fitzpatrick with three games left to play.
This isn’t necessarily meant to serve as a celebration — more so an opportunity to marvel at Miami’s struggles to run the football this season. The Dolphins are on pace to finish the year with just over 1,000 yards rushing as a team, which would be the worst final product since the year 2000.
There’s little hope in sight for an upgrade, either. The Dolphins simply don’t have the firepower up front to reset the line of scrimmage the way they’d like to and as a result teams are stifling them on the ground. But hey, at the very least Dolphins fans can sit back and enjoy watching QB Ryan Fitzpatrick scamper out of the pocket and cheer for him to pad his lead in the race to be Miami’s 2019 rushing king. The absurdity and unlikeliness of it all makes it that much more fun to root for.
[vertical-gallery id=420193]