Is the Miami Dolphins' Offense Good Enough to Get Them to the Playoffs?

The Miami Dolphins' offense has shown itself to be capable of great things. When the offense can run the ball effectively and keep opponents honest, the Dolphins are tough to stop. 

When the running game is not working, though, we've seen some harrowing results. If the Dolphins offense is going to be good enough to get the team to the playoffs, it will need to perform better when it has to rely on its passing game.

The Dolphins learned that lesson the hard way in their 36-7 loss to the New England Patriots on Thursday night, when they rushed for just 15 yards on nine carries.

Make no mistake, this is not some rant about the antiquated belief in balancing the attack on offense, or running to set up the pass, or any of those cliches and old-school football standards. That being said, we've only seen the Dolphins successfully run the ball on a consistent basis in two of their seven games this season so far.

It's clear they need some kind of running game to take the pressure off their passing game.

There are times when defenses are forcing quarterback Ryan Tannehill to do the brunt of the work, and there are times when the Dolphins simply aren't staying committed to the running game. Either way, when the running game isn't there, the passing game hasn't been able to pick up the slack.

"They came in scoring a lot of points and one of our main objectives was just to try to slow them down and stop that running game and make them throw the ball, and I think we did a good job of doing that," Patriots safety Duron Harmon said. "Up front did a great job of stopping the run and when they realized it probably wasn't going as planned, they just went away from it and went straight to the pass." 

Who knows how much differently the game would have gone without an early safety that led to a nine-point first-quarter Patriots lead? But those are not situations where a team should completely abandon the run. 

Stats	Dolphins	Playoff teams, 2014
Points per game	22	25.7
Yards per game	352.3	370.9
Pass yards/game	249.4	252
Yards/pass attempt	6.6	7.2
Rush yards/game	102.9	118.9
Yards/rush attempt	5	4.2
Third down %	27.2	42.6

When comparing the Dolphins offense to last year's playoff offenses, the Dolphins come up short.  

They're not scoring as much, they're not moving the chains as efficiently and they're not as effective in the passing game as last years playoff teams. 

The running game has been effective, even more so than playoff teams from years past, but their numbers on the ground are skewed by two games in which they rushed for 180 yards or more. Other than that, they've been very quiet in the running game.

By the numbers, the Dolphins have a lot of areas they have to improve. On talent alone, however, the Dolphins should be able to do it. Tannehill is an efficient but not deadly quarterback. The Dolphins need to understand that and continue to play into his hands by running the ball effectively and keeping the pressure off him.

He has good enough weapons in Jarvis Landry and Rishard Matthews, who have combined for 75 receptions for 966 yards and six touchdowns through seven games this season. What the Dolphins really need is for a third dynamic pass-catcher to step up and start producing the kind of numbers they need in order to keep defenses spread out.

Aside from Matthews and Landry, no other Dolphins player is averaging three or more receptions per game right now. 

The Dolphins already proved they can score points in bunches in their back-to-back wins over the Tennessee Titans and Houston Texans. If they can stay balanced and get other players more involved, the Dolphins offense should start to hit its stride again. 

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained via team news release.