Week 7 NFL Practice Squad Power Rankings 2021: On the Dolphins ground game woes and Running Backs Don’t Matter

The biggest story in the NFL this morning is the massive production the Browns got from undrafted free-agent running D’Ernest Johnson on a “Thursday Night Football” victory over the Denver Broncos. 

Johnson juked, bounced, and accelerated his way to 146 yards on 22 carries with a score in Cleveland’s 17-14 win in prime time on national television, marking the latest “Running Backs Don’t Matter” example in a league once run by ball carriers.

Of course, hammering the “Running Backs Don’t Matter” narrative is mostly right, but it is nothing groundbreaking. And it’s become one of the football community’s favorite faux arguments. The amount of people who realize quality running backs are readily available much later in the draft and paying big bucks for a veteran isn’t a smart team-building strategy significantly outweigh those who believe teams need to pick runners in the first round or advocate the allocation of major dollars to running backs in today’s NFL.

So planting your flag to announce “Running Backs Don’t Matter!” can be likened to screaming into the void, or in this case, the back of the echo chamber.

Before I digress, I’d like to propose a new, clearer, more respectful title for this school of thought, “Good Running Backs Are Everywhere,” meaning your third-string back could probably piece together an impressive performance with good blocking, and so could that street free agent or practice-squad rookie when given a quality opportunity.

The point of this week’s Practice Squad Power Rankings is to highlight those backs who have been all but completely overlooked yet possess the necessary natural talent and refined skills to produce in an NFL game if called upon.

And I want to focus on the Miami Dolphins, football’s most ground-game challenged team, for years now. In four of their six games to start the 2021 season, they’ve failed to have a running back reach 26 yards on the…