Miami Dolphins Must Fix Run Defense to Save Season

It seems like no matter what the Miami Dolphins do on defense, they just can't stop the run.

Week after week, their opponents are doing their best Hulkamania impersonation, running wild all over the Dolphins defense. 

It started with 161 yards against the Washington Redskins in Week 1. That was the third-most by any defense in the opening game of the season, and it hasn't gotten much better. In fact, they've allowed the second-most rushing yards of any team in the NFL through Week 11, at an average of 126 rushing yards per game.

At this rate, the Dolphins will give up 2,218 rushing yards in 2015, which would be the most since the Dolphins' one-win 2007 season.

The latest atrocity saw the Dolphins let up 166 rushing yards on 38 carries (4.4 yards per carry) to the Dallas Cowboys in Week 11. That might help explain why the Dolphins lost the time of possession battle by a gaudy 38:50 to 21:10. The Cowboys ran the ball all over the Dolphins defense, possessed the ball, killed the clock and dominated the game.

"We've got to stop the run," defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh said after the game, via Abraham Gutierrez of CBS Miami. "We didn't do a good enough job in that area. That's pretty much as simple as it gets."

It hasn't been all bad for the Dolphins run defense this year. They shut down Philadelphia Eagles running backs DeMarco Murray and Ryan Mathews in their Week 10 win, and they gave up just 134 rushing yards in Dan Campbell's first two games as interim head coach. 

But the Dolphins have given up more than 120 rushing yards in six of their 10 games this year, which is tied for the second-most such games in the NFL. 

"I don't know what we gave up, but obviously didn’t do a good enough job in that area," Suh said, per Adam Beasley of the Miami Herald. "It's as simple as it gets...I think it came down to execution on our part. Missed tackles and missed assignments and things of that nature."

It's always hard to pin down a team's problems in run defense, because it's rarely just one factor that leads to so much yardage being piled up against them. It is usually a mix of bad tackling, lack of push up front, bad lane integrity, bad angles by the linebackers and safeties and sometimes scheme. 

Against the Cowboys, the Dolphins only missed four tackles, according to Pro Football Focus. That's not bad considering they missed 11 tackles against the Philadelphia Eagles and a whopping 13 against the New England Patriots. In fact, those four missed tackles against the Cowboys were the fewest the Dolphins have missed all season.

Indeed, it seems like Suh was just going to the old standby of missed tackles as the reason for the struggles of the run defense.

2015	Dolphins	NFL rank
Rush att/game	32.6	32
Rush yds/game	138.6	31
Yards/rush att.	4.3	21
Rush TD	8	20
Rush 10+ yards	43	32

It's going to take a team effort, and it's not going to be easy. Fortunately for the Dolphins, they face off against some lackluster rushing attacks in the final six games of the season. In fact, they only face one team that ranks higher than 20th in the running game, and that's the New York Jets—whose rushing attack has mustered up more than 100 yards in just one of their past five games.

That being said, the Jets ran the ball for 207 yards the last time these two teams met, so the Dolphins can't afford to take the Jets lightly. The way they've been playing, though, they can't afford to take anyone lightly.