Noah Lyles isn’t feared by the Miami Dolphins’ subculture of track and field stars.
After Tyreek Hill boldly claimed he could beat Lyles in a race, leading to a negative response from Lyles on Friday, Miami Pro Bowl running back Raheem Mostert told Fox News Digital that he and other teammates could match Lyles in a race.
“I feel like we could all run with him,” Hill said of Lyles. “I know Noah Lyles said he wanted to compete with Tyreek in the 60-yard dash or whatever. Or whatever the case may be, I feel like we could all run the 60.”
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Noah Lyles celebrates after winning the men’s 100m final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games athletics event at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on August 4, 2024. (Mehmet Murat Oner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Dolphins have a trusted roster of offensive players who all ran track in high school and college — Hill, Mostert, wide receiver Jaylen Waddle and running back Devon Achan — and last season their shared passion for the sport was on display as a weekly tradition: checking Next Gen Stats to see who had run the fastest in their most recent game.
Hill led the weekly titles in this competition last year. Next Generation Statistical Archive.
This season, they’re reviving that tradition with a new offensive star in Odell Beckham Jr. At his peak, the 31-year-old was known for using his elite speed to slip past defenders, but now he’s trying to establish himself among some very fast teammates.
“We keep him very traditional and we always check his stats,” Mostert said. “He’s running now and he comes up to me and Tyreek and Waddle and the other fast guys and says, ‘Hey, these are my times so far.’ We just come at him a little hard and say, ‘You’re not fast enough yet.’ Any time you compete for speed, it’s competitive.”
Beckham began training camp on the physically unable to play list, but Mostert said he plans to include him more in the team’s sprint culture once he’s ready.
“Not yet. He’s still working on some things. I’m sure it will come down to time,” Mostert said when asked if he had done any competitive sprints with Beckham.
Odell Beckham Jr. watches qualifying for the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix at the Monaco Circuit in Monte Carlo, Monaco on May 27, 2023. (Dan Istiten – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)
But track and field isn’t the only sport they’re looking to for inspiration these days: Mostert said the team had their eye on the Olympics in the early days, when there were competitions during breaks in training camp.
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Mostert said he watched several of the women’s track and field events, including Sydney McLaughlin breaking the world record to win gold in the 400m hurdles final and Gabby Thomas winning gold in the 200m final.
But outside of the track and field events, it was another event that had them most excited and talking about: Simone Biles’ gold medal in the women’s all-around gymnastics final. Mostert said Biles’ performance, and how she put together a historic routine that earned her 15.066 points and propelled her into first place over Brazil’s Rebecca Andrade, directly inspired their mindset as a soccer team.
Simone Biles of Team USA competes in the women’s floor exercise final in gymnastics on day 10 of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Bercy Arena on August 5, 2024 in Paris, France. (Naomi Baker/Getty Images)
“We knew at the time that she was in second place and finished last, and the person ahead of her at the time was a girl from Brazil who had a higher score, so we knew right away that she was basically going to have to have a near perfect score to win, and she pretty much did that,” Mostert said.
“The biggest lesson I learned from that is to not get too distracted by other people’s results and stay focused on yourself.”
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Like Biles, Miami will face elite competition and will need to play strong down the stretch if they want to achieve their golden goal of a Super Bowl appearance.
The Dolphins are looking to make the playoffs for the third time this season. Over the past two years, they lost a chance to top their division to the Buffalo Bills and lost in the first round of the playoffs to Buffalo and the Kansas City Chiefs. Those two teams, along with the Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans, are expected to perform as well or better than they did last year.
Tyreek Hill, wearing number 10 of the Miami Dolphins, celebrates with Jaylen Waddle, wearing number 17, after scoring a touchdown in the second quarter against the Kansas City Chiefs during the AFC Wild Card Playoffs at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on January 13, 2024 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
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With the additions of Hill, Mostert, Waddle, Achain and Beckham, this team already knows it can handle Lyles, and how that confidence plays out against Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen will determine how far the Dolphins’ offense can go.
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