Are the Dolphins the Warriors of the NFL? Miami’s Offense is Breaking Football

The Miami Dolphins obliterated the Denver Broncos on Sunday afternoon by a score of 70-20.

No, you didn't read that score wrong.

No, Miami didn't schedule some small directional Division II college opponent.

The Dolphins really hung 70 points on an actual NFL team.

SEVENTY.

The Dolphins were in range for a field goal in the final seconds and could have set the all-time record for points in an NFL game at 73, but Mike McDaniel had his team kneel on fourth down. Apparently they had embarrassed Denver enough with 70.

S-E-V-E-N-T-Y.

Those 70 Miami points rank second in NFL history in the regular season behind Washington's 72 in 1966 a couple months before the first Super Bowl, and 73 would've tied the all-time record set by Chicago in the 1940 NFL Championship. Heck, this is only the second time we've even seen a team crack 60 this century.

So, yeah. It's been a minute since we've seen anything like this — if we ever have before.

It's possible we just watched the greatest display of offense in NFL history.

It might even be possible the Dolphins are only just starting to tap into something that could revolutionize the entire sport going forward, something akin to the NFL's version of the Golden State Warriors.

Don't believe me? Let's dig into the numbers.

The Wild and Crazy Numbers of the Dolphins' NFL-Breaking Offense

Let's start with the rushing numbers.

That's what popped last week against the Patriots, and it was back again versus Denver.

The Dolphins ran 43 times for 350 yards on Sunday — that's 8.1 yards per carry on 43 carries! Only one team all last season ran for that many yards in a game.

Raheem Mostert ran for 83 yards and three scores, now six rushing TDs for the season and a record pace of 34. And he wasn't even the top fantasy RB on this team! Backup De'Von Achane ran 18 times for 203 yards and two scores, then added two more TDs as a receiver. Some third stringer you've definitely never heard of before named Chris Brooks came in and ran nine times for 66 yards, too.

Miami couldn't even run the clock out with grace. The Dolphins just kept ripping off chunk after chunk play on the ground. And this was with what was supposed to be a makeshift line, one that just finally got stud LT Terron Armstead on the field for the first time yet that's also allowed only one sack in three games.

Maybe this run game shouldn't surprise us — Mike McDaniel was a run guy in San Francisco, after all — but it's terrifying that it's not even the best tool in Miami's arsenal.

Heck, it might not have even been the most impressive part of the offense Sunday. The passing game had even more yards at 376, an ungodly 13.4 yards per attempt for the game.

Only one team in NFL history had ever recorded 300 rushing and passing yards in the same game. The Dolphins cleared those numbers by 50 and 76 yards!

Only one team in history had ever finished a game at 8.0 YPC running and 13.0 YPA passing like Miami. That was the Chicago Cardinals in a 1948 win at the Polo Grounds.

We are witnessing history.

Tua Tagovailoa was perfect in the first half, 16-of-16 for 206 yards. He finished with 309 yards and four scores. Tagovailoa is the MVP favorite — down to an eye-popping +325 at BetMGM — and he's now on pace for a record 5,800 yards and 45 TDs.

Technically, Tagovailoa wasn't even the best Miami QB on the field. Backup Mike White went 2-for-2 for 67 yards and a score to finish with a perfect Quarterback Rating, a couple points ahead of Tua.

Tyreek Hill had a ho-hum outing with nine catches, 157 yards, and a score. He's on pace on pace to tie Randy Moss's all-time TD record at 23 and shatter the yardage record at 2,335.

Jaylen Waddle didn't even suit up for Miami. The Dolphins did all this without one of the fastest receivers in the league. Miami hasn't even been whole yet.

I wrote before the season that the Dolphins had a crazy ceiling but needed concurrent health from Tua, Tyreek, Waddle, and Armstead to get there. That quartet has played zero snaps together this season, but the Dolphins are 3-0 anyway, meaning we might not have even seen the best version of the offense yet.

The Dolphins are averaging 43.3 PPG, on pace for 737 points on the season. That would break the all-time NFL scoring record — with three full games to spare! That record was set by Peyton Manning and the 2013 Denver Broncos at 37.9 PPG. The Dolphins are practically a full TD per game ahead of them.

Miami's previous franchise record for points in a game was 55. The Dolphins broke that on the first play of the fourth quarter, then added two TDs and 200 more yards after.

The Dolphins set the all-time NFL record for total yards in any game at 726, breaking a record set in the 1958 season opener between the Los Angeles Rams and the New York Yanks. The next highest in league history is 683. Miami tallied those 726 yards on 71 plays, averaging an absurd 10.23 yards per play for an entire game of video game nonsense. That mark is third best all time.

Shall we put those 726 yards in perspective?

• The New York Giants made the postseason and won a playoff game last year. Their leading receiver, Darius Slayton, had 724 yards on the season.
• Only 37 running backs — basically one per team — hit 726 yards in an entire season last year. Miami did that in three hours of football this season.
• Justin Fields threw the ball 17 times for 50 yards Sunday, an ugly 2.9 YPA. At that rate, it would take Fields 247 passes to match Miami's Sunday passing yardage total. Fields only threw 318 times all last season.

I can just keep going. Miami's 1,651 yards through three games? Another new NFL record.

The Dolphins had more touchdowns Sunday (10) than third downs (9). How is that even possible?

Miami tallied 14-21-14-21 points by quarter, a line anyone would be proud to show off on Tecmo Bowl.

Miami's 0.33 EPA per play rushing ranks in the 98th percentile ever per RBSDM, but that paled in comparison to the 1.04 EPA per play passing in the 100th percentile.

Basically, every time the Dolphins decided to pass, they scored another point. It really was that easy.

Now, the Dolphins are tied for the fifth shortest odds to win the Super Bowl at FanDuel, at +1000, behind the Chiefs (+600), 49ers (+600), Eagles (+800) and Bills (+950), and level with the Cowboys (+1000).

The Dolphins Are Revolutionizing Modern Football

With no exaggeration, the Miami Dolphins might actually be breaking modern football.

What's wild is that this isn't just a one-off lightning-in-a-bottle game. This is just who the Dolphins are.

Look, I've watched a lot of football in my life. I know you have, too. Football goes through different eras and ages.

NFL football doesn't look like college football, and football today doesn't look like what it did five or 10 years ago, let alone 25 or 50.

What the Miami Dolphins are doing is unlike anything I've ever seen on a football field. It's revolutionary.

The only team I can even compare these Dolphins to is the NBA's Golden State Warriors.

Remember how wild it felt watching the Warriors in those early days? It just felt different.

Baby-faced Stephen Curry was running around screens, dialing up audacious shots from beyond the arc, often several feet behind it. Klay Thompson was just as deadly from deep, and the Splash Brothers were changing the geometry of the game in real time. No NBA defense could possibly cover that much of the court.

The Warriors started an NBA revolution: the 3 > 2 revolution. Their whirring dervish of an offense went on to win four NBA titles — and counting? — and has still never been replicated. When you watch the Warriors at their best, whether you know how to explain it or not, you know you're watching something truly unique.

When Golden State won its first NBA championship in 2015, the Warriors led the league in pace and scoring at 110.0 PPG. That number would have ranked 29th of 30 teams this past NBA season. The 3-point crazy Warriors hit 10.8 treys a game. That would have ranked 26th last season.

The Warriors' unique version of basketball has never been replicated or repeated, but it has changed the game of basketball forever.

Are the Dolphins that in the NFL?

Tua Tagovailoa leads the league in many passing categories at this point, but two of them in conjunction are absolutely jaw dropping.

Tagovailoa has the fastest time to throw of any quarterback in the NFL — but he's averaging more completed air yards per attempt than every other QB too.

HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!

This dude is getting the ball out so fast the defense has no chance to get to him — hence one sack all season — but his receivers are so fast that he's still hitting them over 10 yards down the field on average.

It's an absolutely impossible combination. It's Curry-esque.

Tagovailoa led the NFL in Yards Per Attempt last season at 8.9. He's up to 10.1 YPA through three games. I'm sure you'll be stunned to learn that too would be a record since the merger.

So what makes the Dolphins so unique?

A lot of things, of course, with Mike McDaniel's genius at the heart of much of it. But if you had to boil down Miami's uniqueness into one word, it's easy: speed.

The Dolphins have speed to burn, and they have it all over the field.

After Sunday, Miami now has the five fastest NFL ball carrier speeds this season, per Next Gen Stats — and none of those are even by Jaylen Waddle yet.

Miami already had its elite WR speed duo, but now they've got almost as frightful a speed duo at RB in Mostert and Achane. And don't forget the other key speed factor — Tagovailoa's decision-making process and how quickly he gets the ball out to his playmakers, running point guard in this Warriors NFL offense.

And it's not just speed after Dolphins players catch the ball.

You've probably noticed Miami running a ton of motion since McDaniel came to town. Pre-snap motion represents information, because it reveals how the defense reacts and gives the QB valuable info he might have had to process after the snap otherwise. It can also confuse the defense and bend them out of shape, warping the geometry much like those Warriors shooters spreading the court.

But defenses adjusted to McDaniel's motion as last season went along. Good defenses started switching and adjusting on their end before the snap too, negating Miami's advantage.

So McDaniel adjusted back.

This year, the Dolphins are using more pre-snap motion than ever. But now, rather than running Hill or Waddle all the way across the formation, McDaniel is putting his speedsters in motion from the short side of the field. That gives them a running start without giving the defense time to adjust, but still long enough for Hill and Waddle to rev up to full speed.

Per ESPN Stats Info, the Dolphins had a man in motion at the snap a preposterous 49 plays Sunday. Miami scored seven touchdowns on those plays, piling up 553 yards of offense and 11.3 yards per play.

Truly bewildering numbers.

McDaniel unveiled that fast motion in Week 1, and I've been thinking about the Warriors comp ever since.

I almost wrote about it that week but didn't dare, not with Bill Belichick lying in wait Week 2.

But Belichick could only somewhat slow down this Dolphins attack, and Miami settled for a field goal inside the five and also missed two other field goals or the team would've put up way more than 24 points.

And it turns out that 24 was just a tiny speed bump en route to 70 on Sunday.

So what's next for the Dolphins?

Well, Miami is one of two 3-0 teams — the Eagles or Bucs will join them and the 49ers Monday — but the season has a long ways to go. The Dolphins need to win 14 more games before the 1972 squad has to even start worrying about those champagne bottles, and that's before the games that matter most in the playoffs.

Defenses will adjust to McDaniel's quick motion. Defenses always adjust.

But McDaniel and this offense are showing that they have a counter to that counter punch, and there's no reason to believe they won't counter the next counter, too. Miami can beat teams with the run. It can beat teams with the pass. It can take what the defense is giving. It can go over the top.

Opponents are helpless trying to cover the entire field and all that Miami speed. The Dolphins, like the Warriors, are changing the geometry of the game.

Of course, the Warriors comparison is even more outlandish that the Dolphins offense. Golden State won four championships, and Miami hasn't even won four games yet. Again, we've got a long season to go.

Still, I can't help but giggle as I watch these Dolphins, the same way I still giggle when I watch Steph and Klay drain a barrage of 3s en route to another Warriors avalanche.

And I can't help but find myself wondering… Is the Dolphins offense just getting started?