The Miami Dolphins came into this season as Super Bowl sleepers, but that status took a major hit when the team stumbled to a 1-3 start before firing head coach Joe Philbin.
Playoff contention seemed close to out of the question for Miami at that point, but after defeating Tennessee 38-18 in Week 6 and getting out to a 41-0 halftime lead against Houston on the way to a 44-26 win in Week 7, the Dolphins have every bit the look of a playoff contender.
That isn't a mirage, as the game tapes and metrics also point toward Miami being a team the rest of the AFC will have to reckon with this season.
Powerful rushing attack
This postseason contender status starts with one of the best run-blocking walls in the NFL. Coming into Week 7, the Dolphins led the league in my good blocking rate (GBR) metric that measures how often an offensive line gives its ball carriers good blocking (very roughly defined as not allowing the defense to disrupt a rush attempt). Miami's 55.8 percent GBR was well above the 40 percent league average in this category and it made it the only team in the league to post a GBR higher than 50 percent.