Mostert Making Steady Progress
The health status of running back Raheem Mostert is among the biggest question marks with the Miami Dolphins after the end of their offseason program, but he provided a good dose of optimism Wednesday.
Mostert tweeted he was “close to 100%” recovered from the knee surgery that cost him all but one game of the 2021 season, along with providing an update on his newborn son, Myles, whose birth Mostert announced on Twitter on June 7.
Assuming Mostert can regain his form from 2019 or 2020, he should be a vital piece to Miami revitalizing a running game that finished 30th in the NFL last season.
MOSTERT'S MAJOR SUCCESS WITH McDANIEL
Mostert signed a one-year contract with the Dolphins after spending 5 1/2 seasons with the 49ers where he overlapped with new Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel from 2017 to 2020 while he was the team’s running game coordinator.
“As most people know, my affinity for Raheem is real,” McDaniel said in March. “We’ve had journeys together where, in a related way, we both have been counted out at some point and pretty much earned everything we got. It was really exciting, something that I didn’t necessarily forecast going into the whole process but something that was very easy to get excited about after it was presented – was on our plate.”
In a later interview, McDaniel said Mostert “expected” to be ready by Week 1, but the team wasn’t going to rush his recovery.
Mostert had his two best seasons running McDaniel’s version of the outside zone, which McDaniel is bringing to Miami this season.
In 2019, Mostert finished with 772 yards and eight touchdowns while averaging 5.6 yards per attempt. All of those numbers would have ranked first on last year’s Dolphins team. In fact, Mostert leads all running backs with at least 200 carries in yards per attempt (5.67) over the past 50 years.
The last time a Dolphins running back averaged more than 5 yards per carry was Kallen Ballage in 2018, but his average was heavily skewed by a 75-yard touchdown on one of his 36 carries.
Mostert also put up quality numbers during the 2019 postseason when he ran for 336 yards and scored five touchdowns in three games, including a 220-yard, four-touchdown performance against the Packers.
Mostert can give the Dolphins something they’ve been missing in the backfield for a long time — home-run speed.
NextGen Stats credited Mostert with the two fastest runs of the 2020 season when he registered a 22.73 mph run and a 23.09 mph run.
For reference, Jaylen Waddle recorded Miami’s fastest run last season, going 21.8 mph during the team’s Week 12 game against the Carolina Panthers.
Although Mostert’s familiarity with the scheme and straight-line speed makes him an obvious candidate to be the team’s starter, he hasn’t played a full season since 2019 (he missed eight games in 2020), and there is a lot of competition in the running back room.
The Dolphins brought back last year’s leading rusher, Myles Gaskin, signed Chase Edmonds to a two-year contract, and just recently signed Sony Michel after he helped the Rams win the Super Bowl.
Mostert missed all of OTAs, so he’ll have to make up for that lost time whenever he does officially return to the field.
