Raheem Mostert, who scored 21 TDs in 2023, is coming off an injury-plagued season in which he had just 278 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
It was in February 2024 that Raheem Mostert was at an all-time high in his professional career. He had just participated in his first Pro Bowl, after his ninth NFL season, and was coming off a year in which he led the NFL in touchdowns (21) and rushing touchdowns (18), in addition to having a career-best 1,012 rushing yards.
What a difference one year can make. On Friday, the Miami Dolphins
released Mostert after three seasons with the team, giving the running back an unpleasant gift on Valentine’s Day. Mostert had signed a two-year extension prior to the 2023 season and then signed a restructured extension before the 2024 season that ran through 2025. The release will cost the Dolphins
$1 million in dead cap salary for the 2025 season, as opposed to keeping Mostert on the roster resulting in a cap hit of over $4 million.
This past season was one to forget for the 32-year-old. He was injured in Week 1, finishing with just nine yards in the opener, and would be forced to miss the next three games. After returning in Week 5 and having season-highs in both rushing yards (80) and scrimmage yards (98), Mostert’s success was short-lived as he would move into a reserve role the next game. Second-year back De’Von Achane ascended to the top of the running back depth chart, and Mostert didn’t have more than 10 touches in any game after Week 9.
Another injury would force him to sit in Week 14, and he played a single snap in the Week 18 finale, perhaps foreshadowing the team’s plans for him. For the season, Mostert had seven games with under 10 rushing yards, compared with six games with double-digit rushing yards. He finished his 10th season with 278 rushing yards and two touchdowns, but worst of all, his 3.3 yards per carry ranked 56th out of 58 NFL players with at least 80 carries.
Outside of 2023, Mostert’s previous best season came the year prior when he went over 1,000 scrimmage yards for the first time in his career. That was his first year with the Miami Dolphins, as he followed coach Mike McDaniel from the San Francisco 49ers—where McDaniel coached Mostert for five years—to South Beach. During his time in the Bay Area, Mostert is best remembered for rushing for 220 yards and four touchdowns in the 2020 NFC Championship Game versus the Green Bay Packers. It was the second-most rushing yards in NFL postseason history, trailing only Eric Dickerson’s 248 in 1986, and Mostert
became the first player ever with 200 rushing yards and four rushing scores in a playoff game.
For his career, Mostert, who was undrafted out of Purdue in 2015, has played in 103 regular-season games with 39 starts. He’s rushed for 3,791 yards and 34 touchdowns, with another 899 receiving yards to go along with eight receiving touchdowns. Even with a down 2024 season, his career rushing average is a sterling 5.0, which trails only Nick Chubb (5.1) among active running backs and is tied for the
11th-best in NFL history.
Mostert now enters a 2025 running back free agent class that includes players who were much more productive last season, such as Aaron Jones and Najee Harris, as well as several players who had injury-afflicted 2024 seasons, like Chubb and JK Dobbins. However, what every running back in the NFL has over Mostert is youth on their side. At 32, Mostert was the NFL’s oldest running back last season, and he’ll turn 33 in April.
With fellow veteran running back Jeff Wilson Jr., a free agent after spending the last three years in Miami, the team is clearly turning the page to Achane as its No. 1 back. He had 907 yards and six rushing touchdowns last year but truly made his presence felt through the air. The second-year player led all running backs in both receptions (78) and receiving yards (592), while his six receiving scores were tied with Rachaad White for the most. The Dolphins also drafted Jaylen Wright in the fourth round last season, and he produced 249 rushing yards as a rookie.
Miami will presumably add more talent to the backfield with hopes of injecting some life into the running game. After leading the NFL in both rushing touchdowns and yards per carry in Mostert’s career season in 2023, Miami slipped to 23rd in touchdowns and 28th in yards per carry in 2024. That played a huge part in the team going from having the No. 2 scoring offense in 2023 to the No. 22 unit last year.
But Miami is currently
over the salary cap for the 2025 season. Just four teams have more money committed to players than the Dolphins, so they’ll have limited resources to make moves, unless there are more cap casualties coming.
