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At the start of the season, Dolphins coach Adam Gase was so down on running back Jay Ajayi that Gase left Ajayi home for the team’s Week One trip to Seattle. A whole lot has changed since then.

On Sunday, Ajayi became just the fourth player in NFL history to rush for more than 200 yards in back-to-back games, and Gase said today on PFT Live that Ajayi’s success has been all about improving his work ethic. Gase said that the team had some issues with Ajayi between the end of the preseason and the start of the regular season, but those issues are all in the past.

“He had 10 bad days there from the fourth preseason game to the first game, but he’s been great every day besides having that little rough spot,” Gase said. “He’s done a great job grabbing this thing and taking advantage of it, and he’s done everything we needed him to do.”

Gase said he could tell as soon as the Dolphins returned from Seattle that Ajayi was committed to having a positive impact on the team this year.

“When we got back for that next week, he was great in the meetings, he practiced hard, he did everything we asked him to do,” Gase said. “And that’s why he’s in this position.”

It was less than two months ago that the Dolphins didn’t even think Ajayi was one of the 46 players they wanted on the field for Week One. Now Ajayi looks like one of the best running backs in the NFL.