First, a pronunciation guide for a player you’re obviously going to need to get to know, a player who might have just had the best offensive day in the grand history of the Miami Dolphins.
“Need to pronounce your name right. I heard it was A-chain,” I said to De’Von Achane late Sunday afternoon. Long “a,” with “chain.”
He said no. “It’s A-chan.”
Okay, we’ve got that down now. Miami’s third-round rookie back from Texas A&M is De-von A-chan. He’s 21. He rushed 18 times for 203 yards in a 233-yard rushing/receiving day with four touchdowns. There’s nothing normal about a 70-20 football game, when a player 94 percent of the country (maybe more) has never heard of has a game like this, when Tua Tagovailoa is 16 of 16 in the first half and no one notices, when Raheem Mostert and Achane both tied the single-game team record with four TDs in a game, when the home teams gains 726 yards and calls off the dogs at the end … or they could have scored more points than any team in a game in the 104-year history of the NFL.
“That’s what I’m saying!” Achane said over the phone from Hard Rock Stadium Sunday. “On the sidelines, we were all talking about it. Like, ‘This is really crazy! This has gotta be some type of record.’”
Actually, two players have never combined for eight TDs in a game before, as Achane and Mostert did. There were 13 team records set or tied, and Miami came within two points and 10 yards from setting NFL records in each.
But I found a couple of things significant about the game—other than the fact that, holy crap, you do not want to be playing Miami right now.
One: Mike McDaniel usually talks to the team pre-game for some last reminders, as coaches tend to do. But this new-wave coach wants the Dolphins to be a player-led team. He had fullback Alec Ingold talk to the team before this game. Nothing Rockne-ish was said, but the message was sent: I trust you guys.
Two: McDaniel is seen as an odd genius type, and he probably is. (Certainly the stuff about his offensive brain is top-of-NFL right now, as was illustrated by Tua Tagovailoa’s no-look designed shovel-pass TD in the first half.) But this is also a coach who has significant love for the game, and the history of the game. He knows it would have seemed crass, bordering on bush-league, to run up the score just so the Dolphins could break a couple of records for points and yards. If you’re not doing it in the regular competition of the game, why do it? Miami ran into the line twice, then did a kneel-down, on its last series.
“It’s not the way you want to get the record,” he said post-game. “I would hope that if the shoe was on the other foot, the opponent would feel the same way. That’s called karma. I’m trying to keep good karma with the Miami Dolphins.”
Karma’s good. Finding an explosive weapon like the 5-8 Achane with the 84th pick in the 2023 draft is better. “Me having 200 yards in an NFL game, that’s a shock to me,” Achane said. “But I think I showed the type of back I am. I don’t think people knew about my toughness, running between the tackles, taking hits. People think I’m an undersized back and can’t take the hits, but as you can see I can take them. I can pick up blocks.”
Every week there’s a new team to shoot for in the NFL. Last week it was Dallas. This week, it’s Miami that’s the dangerous, dangerous team.
Read more in Peter King’s full Football Morning in America column.
