Dolphins say they had the running back need handled the entire time. So did they?
The Miami Dolphins don’t care what you or I think of their obvious need at running back because they believe they’ve already addressed the issue.
Malcolm Brown.
Malcolm Brown?
Yeah, Malcolm Brown!
“We added Malcolm Brown to the group in free agency, so we’ve upgraded our roster,” general manager Chris Grier said Friday evening after the second and third rounds of the NFL draft.
“We feel good where we are as a team right now. As we’ve always said, we’ll keep looking and running through every position and looking for upgrades, potentially at every position all the way up through the season, as we’ve always done.”
So, Malcolm Brown.
The Dolphins had not previously announced Brown was their big free agency answer to their running back need because, well, they don’t make such big proclamations about many free agency additions.
They kind of do their business and let their fans, opponents, and the media guess what’s happening. It wasn’t until Friday when Grier offered up the Brown acquisition as a solution to the running back room that Brown finally rose from under the radar.
But here is the small issue with thinking Brown is the answer:
The Dolphins haven’t acted like that until now. Because they only signed him to a one-year contract.
And the deal is for a modest $1.75 million.
That makes Brown the 31st highest paid player on the team. And that’s without counting incoming rookies such as first-round pick Jaylen Waddle, who will be making more.
So either the Dolphins found the answer to their running back need at a tremendous bargain ... or somebody is exaggerating how the team really feels about him.
It should be said that Brown has been a solid college and professional player for a decade. He’s not some schlub.
But the truth also is he’s never been a star.
He rushed for 2,678 yards at the University of Texas. But it took him four seasons to do it.
His best college season was 2013 when he gained 904 yards while averaging 4.2 yards per carry -- modest numbers for a college running back about to be a professional.
Brown was not drafted and signed with the St. Louis Rams in 2015. That didn’t stop him from spending six seasons and playing 70 games with the Rams, even after the team moved to Los Angeles.
But of his 70 games, he only has two career starts.
And of all his NFL seasons, 2020 was his best. He gained 419 yards and averaged 4.1 yards per carry.
So Brown averaged a career-high 26.2 rushing yards per game last season.
Grier thus sees the Brown addition as an answer. And combined with Myles Gaskin, Salvon Ahmed, Patrick Laird, and Jordan Scarlett, Grier is generally satisfied with Miami’s personnel at running back.
“...We have good runners on the roster,” Grier said. “We feel good about our guys.”
The Dolphins have three picks Saturday -- none in the fourth-round, one in the fifth-round, none in the sixth round, and two in the seventh round.
So Derrick Henry is not going to be drafted by the Dolphins today.
That probably doesn’t matter to the Dolphins because they seemingly reject the idea they have a need at running back at all and definitely don’t like the idea of drafting for need, especially if it’s know-nothing Mando who thinks the team needs a running back.
“I think when you draft on need, at times you reach for stuff and start trying to appease what some people may think about it,” Grier said. “At the end of the day, you set your board with the best players available and you want to make sure that you’re adding good players to your roster.
“We’d love to draft every position, every player, every year if we could. But for us, the players we added were at the right spots for us and we feel good about it.”
This story was originally published May 1, 2021 at 11:20 AM.
