Dolphins can’t abandon the run against Cardinals

By Joe Mayes  |   Thursday, September 11, 2008  |  Comments( 4 )

Miami Dolphins
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From the time Dolphins capo di tutti capi Bill Parcells named Tony Sparano head coach in the winter, the assumption was that Miami was going to be an old-school, 4-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust, run-first team. Even the team’s personnel pointed to a priority on carrying the ball. Former Pro Bowler Ricky Williams had a freshly signed contract extension and Ronnie Brown looked to be fully healed from the torn ACL he suffered in Week 7 of last season. Combine that with the fact that newly appointed starting quarterback Chad Pennington had joined the team only a month earlier and that the Miami receiving corps looked softer than New England’s schedule, and there really wasn’t much doubt that the Dolphins would be built on running the ball.

So, the question on just about every Dolphin fan’s mind after Sunday’s 20-14 loss to the New York Jets was: Where was the run?

Miami attempted just 17 rushes against the Jets, 13 of them in the first half. Williams carried seven times for 18 yards in the first half and only three times after intermission. Brown had an even lighter workload, with five rushes for 18 yards in the first half and one for 5 yards in the second. The only other Dolphin with a rush was second-year receiver Ted Ginn, who added a 2-yard carry. The team had zero rushing attempts in the fourth quarter.

So what happened to the Dolphins' running game?

In his Monday post-game press conference, the Little Tuna said, “What happened in the game is we kind of got into one of those deals where we felt like, at that time, we needed to throw the ball and open the offense up a little bit to get some things going. [Sunday] just was a day where we had to throw it a few more times than we had to run it.”

A few more times? How about 2 1/2 times as many passes as rushes? Pennington celebrated the one-month anniversary of signing with the Dolphins by attempting 43 passes to go with the team’s 17 rushes.

To be fair, the Jets seemed to have shut the Dolphins down in the second quarter. After a pair of three-and-outs on their first two possessions of the season, the Dolphins finished the first quarter with an 11-play, 78-yard drive that resulted in their inaugural touchdown of 2008. In the second quarter, however, Miami’s possessions looked like this:

- Three plays, minus-1 yard, punt;
- Three plays, minus-3 yards, punt; and
- One play, minus-11 yards, and -- mercifully -- halftime.

Despite this, the Dolphins were down only 13-7 and had to feel good about their chances coming out of the locker room. Apparently Sparano and offensive coordinator Dan Henning only felt good about their chances with Pennington throwing the ball, however.

In the third quarter, Pennington completed three passes for 25 yards before connecting on 16-of-24 for 163 yards in leading the team on a comeback attempt that fell one end-zone interception short.

This Sunday against Arizona, the Dolphins may not have much more success moving the ball on the ground. In Week 1, the 49ers rushed for 108 yards versus a Cardinal team that ranked ninth in the NFL against the rush in 2007, allowing just 97.9 yards per contest. However, of the 108 yards, Frank Gore accounted for 96 of them, including 70 in the first quarter and 41 on one play.

But Gore is an elite back in his prime. The Dolphins have Williams -- a 31-year-old with just six NFL carries in the two seasons prior to Sunday’s opener -- and Brown -- coming off a major knee surgery about 10 months ago -- running behind an offensive line that has exactly one game of experience together as a unit.

Of course, that does not mean the Dolphins can’t cover the seven-point spread or even win the game outright on Sunday. The Cardinal defensive backs weren’t tested by the 49ers, whose wideouts caught just four passes on opening day, so it is possible that the veteran Pennington will be able to continue his success by once again connecting with eight different receivers.

But most experts still agree that Miami's success in 2008 will be more likely found on the legs of Williams and Brown than on the arm of Pennington (take your pick). Expect Sparano and Henning to try to control the flow of the game by establishing the run against the formidable Cardinal defensive front seven in Week 2.

Or, as Williams said on Monday, “Teams look at us and they know we have to run the ball to win. We still have to run the ball.”

Williams knows that. The Cardinals know that. Even Sparano and Henning know that. The only question is whether the coaches will remember that in the second half of Sunday’s game in Arizona.

SUNDAY'S PREDICTION: Arizona wins it, 27-17.
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About Joe Mayes

Joe Mayes is an award-winning writer with credits ranging from national sports columns to local newspapers and commercial and technical writing. Joe is the host of "The Morning Wrap," a morning drive-time sports talk radio show on WTKE-FM in Northwest Florida.
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