The Miami Dolphins just announced that they’ve signed free agent running back Steve Slaton. The Fins wasted no time snatching up Slaton, who was released by the Houston Texans just a day earlier. The question is, besides a little added depth at best, just what the former Texans back can contribute to the Miami running game.
Drafted out of West Virginia by Houston in 2008, he was a beast in his rookie season, putting up numbers in gaudy chunks to amass 1,200-plus yards to set the franchise single-season rookie record, and led the league in yards for rookie running backs. But the years since have seen a steady decline in his production, and Slaton has historically suffered from fumble problems, burying him under talent like Arian Foster and Ben Tate on the Texans depth chart.
A young back just 25-years old, he moves to the Dolphins with plenty left in the tank. Yet, in a season where the team worked out retired Giants running back Tiki Barber (36 years old) and former Redskins stud Clinton Portis (30), before signing and subsequently cutting the 32-year-old Larry Johnson, who’s proven washed up since leaving the Chiefs in 2009, the move almost can’t help but raise question marks. Like where he fits into this team’s running game.
Rookie running back Daniel Thomas, has been chugging through the early part the season, running hard between the tackles and refusing to go down after hits, putting himself on pace for the best rookie season in franchise history.
Reggie Bush, meanwhile, has seemed somewhat invisible behind Thomas’ output the past two weeks. But even though Bush and Slaton are comparable in size (6’/203lb and 5’9”/199lbs, respectively), and theoretically play a similar game, Bush is a much different type of player—from him or most anyone else in the NFL—a more dynamic dual-threat who creates mismatches all over the field, and head coach Tony Sparano has spoken repeatedly about the desire to get the ball in his hands in space.
