Miami running back Reggie Bush is lucky he doesn’t have to face his team’s rush defense. (US Presswire) |
The Miami Dolphins defense has been beaten with deep throws and screen passes through two weeks, but few teams around the league are able to match them in the trenches.
The Dolphins yielded just 23 rushing yards in a 35-13 win over Oakland a week after giving up 83 yards on 35 carries to the Houston Texans, a team that touts arguably the NFL’s best rushing attack. The defensive line is anchored by tackles Randy Starks and Paul Soliai with Jared Odrick and Cameron Wake containing the edges.
“We have a standard, that’s what we do,” Wake said. “Think about the front four guys, over the past few years, that’s a tough road, if you’re going to come here and try to run the ball on us, that's going to be a long day for you. That's just something we put in as a given and try to work on improving other things.”
Overall, the team hasn’t allowed an opposing running back to crack the 100-yard milestone in 16 straight games, the longest such streak in football. The franchise record is 20 straight games from 2002 to 2003.
“We feel real good," Starks said. "We played well in spurts last week; it’s just the transitions we didn’t do too well overall. We gave up one big play. We know as a defense it’s going to be hard for (teams to) take the ball and drive down consistently on us. As long as we don’t give up the big play, it will be fine.”
Run, Reggie: Reggie Bush isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.
The former first-round draft pick is emerging as one of the top running backs in the league in his second season in Miami. Bush amassed 197 yards of total offense to go with two touchdowns in the victory. Overall, he has cracked the 100-yard mark in total offense for the sixth straight game and topped the 90-yard plateau for the 10th time in 17 games as a Dolphin.
“I felt like it was a complete game, but I’m not sure if it was my best game,” Bush said. “I’ll leave that to you guys. For me, I just wanted to play a complete game today, catching the ball, running the ball, running for four yards every time I touched the ball and just being effective. And then being a leader for the young guys. But the most important detail is that we got the win.”
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