National Football League

How do 2023 Dolphins stack up with best offenses in NFL history?

Published Sep. 28, 2023 8:25 p.m. ET

The Miami Dolphins are off to a blazing start to the 2023 season at 3-0, coming off a historic 70-20 beatdown of the Denver Broncos on Sunday. That incredible performance has vaulted the Dolphins offense onto a statistical pace that, if it keeps up, could give Miami a place among the greatest offenses in NFL history.

2023 Miami Dolphins (through 3 games)

43.3 points per game
552.0 scrimmage yards per game
363.7 pass yards per game
188.3 rush yards per game
10.6 pass yards per attempt
6.08 rush yards per attempt
8.38 net yards per play

Miami's 130 points are second-most all-time through a season's first three games, just two behind the 1968 Dallas Cowboys. Their 726 total yards against the Broncos were also the second-most in NFL history for a single game, just nine behind a showing from the 1951 Rams.

The Dolphins also became just the fourth team to score 70 in a single NFL game (including playoffs), while running backs De'Von Achane and Raheem Mostert became the second pair of teammates in NFL history with four scrimmage touchdowns apiece in the same game. (Priest Holmes and Derrick Blaylock did so in a 2004 Kansas City Chiefs game.)

But the Dolphins stand alone as the only team in the Super Bowl era with five rushing touchdowns and five passing touchdowns thanks to their performance against Denver in Week 3.

2013 Denver Broncos

37.9 PPG
465.3 scrimmage YPG
348.3 pass YPG*
117.1 rush YPG
8.3 pass YPA
4.06 rush YPA
6.33 net yards per play

Peyton Manning's 2013 Broncos are still the only team in history to score over 600 points and over 70 touchdowns on offense in a single season. They also still hold the NFL record for highest pass yards per game, though Tua Tagovailoa's Dolphins are still averaging over 15 yards more as of now.

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Manning also set the single-season record for passing touchdowns with 55 through 16 games, a mark which will take a lot to surpass — even Tagovailoa, with eight touchdown passes through his first three games, is on pace for "only" 45 if he plays in all 17 of the Dolphins' regular-season games.

However, if the Dolphins can keep up even a bit of what they did against this same Broncos franchise on Sunday, Denver's lofty single-season points and touchdown records from 2013 appear to be in serious jeopardy.

2011 New Orleans Saints

34.2 PPG
477.0 scrimmage YPG
344.1 pass YPG
132.9 rush YPG
8.3 pass YPA
4.94 rush YPA
6.69 net yards per play

Before Manning's Broncos, Drew Brees and these Saints held many of those same single-season offensive records, and still hold the high-water mark for total scrimmage yards per game with 477. But the Dolphins could put that record in serious danger, averaging 75 more yards per game thus far this year.

Brees also set the NFL record for single-season passing yards with 5,476 — until Manning broke it by just one yard two years later. Tagovailoa has a chance to shatter this record if he keeps up his current play, as he is currently on pace to rack up over 5,800 pass yards.

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2007 New England Patriots

36.8 PPG
419.3 scrimmage YPG
303.7 pass YPG
115.6 rush YPG
8.3 pass YPA
4.10 rush YPA
6.22 net yards per play

The Patriots are best remembered for coming oh-so-close to perfection before Eli Manning's New York Giants pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Super Bowl history over Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. But they did so by combining their usual Belichickian dominant defense with an offense that roared behind Brady, Randy Moss and a scheme that is widely credited with helping the NFL become a much more passing-friendly league, introducing concepts only commonly seen in college football before such as using three or four wide receivers and frequently using no-huddle and shotgun formations.

The Patriots shattered several NFL single-season scoring records that year, and their whopping +315 point differential still stands as the largest in league history. Brady became the first quarterback to throw 50 touchdown passes in a single season, though he has since been joined by Manning and Patrick Mahomes in that club.

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The 2023 Dolphins have some echoes of those Patriots, particularly in the way they acquired a superstar wide receiver (with Tyreek Hill being Miami's version of Moss) and find new, innovative ways to get the football in his hands and those of their other playmakers, which Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel is proving to be a genius at with the way he disguises formations and routes.

But Hill might also earn some Moss comparisons in a different way soon. Since Moss set a new NFL single-season record with 23 touchdown receptions in 2007, no other wideout has come close to reaching that mark. Hill, with four touchdown catches over his first three games, is on pace for about 22 touchdown catches in 2023, which would tie him for second-most in a single season with Jerry Rice and make Hill just the third player ever with over 20 touchdown catches in a season.

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1999 St. Louis Rams

32.9 PPG
414.9 scrimmage YPG
286.3 pass YPG
128.7 rush YPG
8.6 pass YPA
4.78 rush YPA
6.45 net yards per play

The Rams' high-flying offense, nicknamed the "Greatest Show on Turf," had an unlikely cast of characters. Undrafted backup quarterback Kurt Warner became that year's NFL and Super Bowl MVP, running back Marshall Faulk became just the second player all-time to record over 1,000 yards each rushing and receiving (Christian McCaffrey became the third in 2019), and the team notched a +284 point differential, second only to the 2007 Patriots in the Super Bowl era. Faulk's 1,048 receiving yards are still the most by a running back in a single season during the Super Bowl era.

Neither Dolphins running back may be able to surpass Faulk's 1,000-yard receiving mark, but Raheem Mostert and De'Von Achane proved with their eight combined touchdowns that they will be an integral part of Miami's offensive success going forward.

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1998 Minnesota Vikings

34.8 PPG
401.8 scrimmage YPG
280.8 pass YPG
121.0 rush YPG
8.4 pass YPA
4.30 rush YPA
6.21 net yards per play

Minnesota burst on the scene in 1998 thanks to a rookie Randy Moss augmenting an offense that already had Randall Cunningham at quarterback, current FOX Sports analyst Robert Smith at running back and veteran Cris Carter alongside Moss at wide receiver. The Vikings became the first team to record over 500 points in the Super Bowl era since the 1983 Washington team, and their 34.8 points per game is the sixth-highest single-season average of any team since 1966.

These Dolphins also echo the Vikings in some interesting ways. Not only do Mostert and Achane seem poised to deliver a veteran-rookie tandem like Moss and Carter did (to say nothing of third-year star Jaylen Waddle at wide receiver alongside Hill), but Tagovailoa, like Cunningham, is a left-handed quarterback, providing a unique wrinkle for defenses.

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