Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley knows where his offense will run through primarily this year, and he expects running back De’Von Achane to buckle up.
“I just gave Achane a heads-up this morning, and I told him, ‘You better be in good shape,’” Hafley said during “The Rich Eisen Show” on Monday. “I told him there might be some games when I have to pick him up and carry him back to the locker room because he’s going to be so tired.”
Achane is one of the few players back on the Dolphins’ offense this year, so it makes sense that Hafley, a first-year head coach, will rely on him. The Dolphins have major turnover at skill positions and at quarterback with Malik Willis, a career backup before he signed this offseason.
Achane had a career year in 2025 with 238 carries for 1,350 yards and eight touchdowns, so he is well-qualified to shoulder the load. He had 203 carries for 907 yards for six touchdowns in 2024, so he is accustomed to north of 200 carries in a season.
That’s critical for the Dolphins’ offense to have any success this year. A team that’s generally viewed as tanking, Willis has six career starts, and none of the Dolphins’ primary pass catchers have ever eclipsed 1,000 yards in their careers.
Achane will add to the limited pass-catching talent amid his 172 receptions for 1,277 yards and 13 touchdowns in three seasons.
“He’s one of the smarter players,” Hafley told Eisen. “When you talk to him ... he’s really a smart football player, and it’s fun to go back and forth with him. He’s got this fun energy about him. I think he’s a stud.”
Miami took Achane with a third-round pick out of Texas A&M in the 2023 draft.
He played an immediate role in the Dolphins’ offense that year, with 103 carries for 800 yards and eight touchdowns, plus 27 receptions for 197 yards and three touchdowns.
Achane made the Pro Bowl last year with his first 1,000-yard season, but his best pass-catching season came the year before. He had 78 receptions for 592 yards and six touchdowns in 2024, and that was a year when the Dolphins had a carousel of quarterbacks due to injuries.
Achane will now look to make Willis’s job easier. As much as Achane could touch the ball this year, he is only 14th in the league for most carries since 2024, behind a host of top running backs.
“I told him, ‘I don’t ever want to see one of these head taps all year,’ and he looked me right in the eye, and he said, ‘You’ll never get that head tap from me,'” Hafley said.
“I said, ‘Don’t worry, buddy. After you touch the ball 40, 45 times, I might have to pick you up and carry you back into the locker room.’”
If Achane touches the ball that much, he could break an NFL record that has stood since 1984 for the most touches by a running back in a season. Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back James Wilder hit the record that year with 492 touches.
The last running back to eclipse 450 touches occurred in 2006 with former Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson, who had 457. Achane will be on pace for 680 touches if he really has at least 40 touches per game.
While that number is highly unlikely, Miami is maximizing Achane on his rookie contract extension of four years, $64 million at a time when multiple running backs are cashing in.
Achane became the third-highest-paid running back in the league behind Jahmyr Gibbs of the Detroit Lions at $67.5 million and Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson at $66.75 million.
