The Miami Dolphins were one of the biggest punching bags in the league during the first month or two of this season. They were left for dead. They lost their top player, Tyreek Hill, to a gruesome season-ending injury. They fired their long-time general manager, Chris Grier. They were 2-7.
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But the Phins are rolling now. They have now won three straight—including an impressive division win over the Buffalo Bills—to jump up to 5-7 and re-enter the “In the Hunt” portion of the AFC playoff picture. And a lot of that is on the back of third-year running back De’Von Achane’s brilliance.
Achane has been unstoppable during this three-game run, posting three straight 100-yard games for the first time since he originally burst onto the NFL scene back in September 2023. He has been carrying his team so comfortably over the last month or so that long-time NFL pundit Rich Eisen thinks the 24-year-old should be looked at for some serious hardware this season.
“Most rush yards through 12 games by a Miami player since Ricky Williams… in 2002. He’s the leading pass-catcher for the Dolphins… When he touches the ball 20 times in a game, that’s happened five times, you wanna guess what the Dolphins record is? 5-0. They’re 0-7 in all the others,” Eisen said on his show.
That last stat is especially impressive. It seems the answer to Miami’s woes is to simply give the ball to their best player. Who would have thunk it?
Achane has been special over the last three weeks. His 65 attempts are second in the league, his 428 rushing yards are first, his 6.6 yards per attempt are second, his three TDs are tied for fourth, and his 21 first downs are first. If we’re talking scrimmage yards, he’s first with 524 yards and second with 76 touches. And Eisen continued to rattle off the impressive superlatives for Achane.
“He’s led the NFL in scrimmage yards with 157.5 per game since Week 9. The only player with more games than his 10 with 90+ scrimmage yards this year is Christian McCaffrey. 120+ rush yards in three straight games, that’s tied with the aforementioned Ricky Williams for the longest streak in Dolphins history. The only one with more of a streak in the last 10 seasons … since [Ezekiell Elliott].”
🎥 Rich Eisen believes De'Von Achane should be in the conversation for OPOY and lists out his stats and records broken this season:
"When he touches the ball 20 times in a game, that's happened 5 times [Dolphins are 5-0], they're 0-7 in all the others… Let's not put the ball… pic.twitter.com/ZNqQ3AsNTA
— FinsXtra (@FinsXtra) December 5, 2025
This discussion led to Eisen and his buddies saying that Achane might not be a bad dark-horse candidate for Offensive Player of the Year this season. If the Dolphins run the table and go 10-7, he’d have quite a case.
As it stands, Achane’s a massive underdog. He sits eighth on the odds table with +12,500 odds.
Overall this season, the star RB has taken 186 rushing attempts (12th) for 1,034 yards (fourth), six TDs (17th), and 46 first downs (t-seventh). His 5.6 yards per carry are behind only Jonathan Taylor and Jahmyr Gibbs, who are tied at the top with 5.7. His 1,404 scrimmage yards rank fourth overall, and his 54 receptions rank third among RBs.
