Dolphins coach Joe Philbin open to Lamar Miller getting more carries

Can't believe this is a story.

 

Doesn't take a genius to decide to give a guys more than his 13.5 carries per game when he gives you 5.1 a carry. Does anyone have the specific stats from last season showing that he was getting less efficient the more carries he got? I thought I remember seeing some of those.

From NFL's website it shows:
1st half ypc: 5.0
2nd half ypc: 5.2

1st half yards: 500
2nd half yards: 599

So it almost looks the opposite from those stats. Interesting that he got 5.8 ypc at home compared to 4.2 on the road (97 yarder against the Jets helps the home stat a bit).

 

I know that I looked at his stats prior to the last game of the season. According to the NFL.com situational splits he was averaging 2.49 on carries 11-20. That last game with the 97 yard run bumped him up to 4.7. He averaged 5.3 on carries 1 - 10.

 

Thanks Raf, I see those numbers now. Do you think he will be able to handle the larger load with the extra weight he added?

 

One would hope the headline would be, "Philbin plans to run Miller down everyone's throats". Then again, he's not about to make declaration and give everyone a Dolphins play-by-play for the upcoming season.

 

I don't know that it's about not being able to handle it. That would be a stamina issue and I don't have any reason to believe he's not in good enough shape. I think that late in the games he's just going against more run focused defenses and that he doesn't break enough tackles or make enough people miss to be successful in those situations. Maybe the extra weight can help him power through more tackles, but I won't have an opinion on that until I see him play at the new weight.

 

In other news, Joe Philbin looks forward to having a different roster from last year, this year.

 

Lamar Miller getting more carries may not necessarily be the right thing unless he can physically take the pounding. If I recall, he was harboring some injury last season.

More carries is great, and I believe Philbin would like this, too. But the fact remains that too much of an increase brings into question his durability, which is a legitimate concern. This may be why Miller added the weight.

 

Miller's never been one to break tackles. Has anyone ever developed the ability to do so, in the NFL when they lacked it in college? It'll be interesting to see how his year goes. An article a few weeks ago says he's already lost most of that weight. He's almost down to the weight he played last year, which is already higher than what it was before.

Jamaal Charles interestingly enough is losing weight. To be faster. He knows he doesn't break tackles. I'm not sure what I'd like Miller to do (gain vs. lose weight). He's not as dynamic as Charles. He's not a break your ankles or break your tackle guy. But if there is enough of a lane he hits it fast. I'm rooting for Miller, he's one of my faves.

 

I really hope that he gets the chance to carry the ball more when he's going well. Those stats where his YPC is less later in games are misleading, because it's a fairly small sample size, and in many of those cases he was running into a packed front seven in short yardage. Look at his game log, and I don't think that you'll find many cases where he simply did poorly as his carries increased.

 

I beg to differ....He sure did put the move on Leodis McKelvin that broke his ankle in the Thursday nighter against Buffalo after Leodis ran his mouth too much. Lol

 

Yeah he has the capability to do it once in a while. But he's no Lesean or Charles. He's almost a tweener in that sense. I see him more of a one or two move runner and then hit it straight. He's not going to break a tackle, he's not going to consistently juke someone. But if he picks the right angle early enough, has the speed to outrun a defender before turning the corner.