The Miami Dolphins have only had a handful of chances to see their starting quarterback and starting running back share the field together this season — one of the many testaments of how ready this Dolphins team is to embrace the ‘next man up’ mentality on any given week. When Tua Tagovailoa took over as the starting quarterback of this football team in Week 7, he and starting running back Myles Gaskin shared the field the following week to face the Los Angeles Rams — and the two didn’t share the field together again until Week 13 due to a knee sprain for Gaskin.
When Gaskin returned against Cincinnati, the results were terrific — Gaskin accounted for 141 yards from scrimmage in a win.
But then, in very 2020 fashion, Gaskin was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list and has missed each of Miami’s last two games with the virus. But it seems as though the second year running back is ready to put that all behind him now; the Dolphins announced yesterday that he’s been activated off the reserve/COVID-19 list.
Dolphins activated running back Myles Gaskin off the reserve/COVID-19 list.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 23, 2020
Gaskin was back at practice with the Dolphins and rubbing elbows with his fellow running backs, including Salvon Ahmed — who was the one who finally eclipsed the 100-yard mark in a single game against the Patriots; making him the first Dolphins running back to do so since late in 2018.
The question for the Dolphins now is how do they manage to rotate their backs? They seem to have found a good thing in Ahmed and there’s no question that he’s in the zone right now as a ball carrier. Do the Dolphins interrupt that momentum to place Gaskin back into the fray? Gaskin is certainly a better receiving option than Ahmed; perhaps the Dolphins exchange Gaskin into the team’s third-down package instead of Patrick Laird?
The Dolphins will have options. And for just the third time this season, those options should include Gaskin and Tagovailoa sharing the backfield.