Miami Dolphins Fantasy Football Team Preview 26-27

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    The Dolphins threw in the towel last season and have gone for a full rebrand, jettisoning QB Tua Tagovailoa, HC Mike McDaniels and star WRs Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle.  It’s not often you see a team pivot this quickly and violently, but the MIA offense looked lost last season and has scored under 350 points in b2b seasons.  They ran the second-fewest plays and were 20th or worst in FPPG at QB, WR and TE.  All is not lost though as they brought in Bobby Slovik to run the offense which should look much explosive than it did in HOU.  I remain a MIA truther and think the offense will succeed though addition by subtraction.  The WR position is a legit problem and might be the worst in the NFL, but that’s for another section.  You need a foundation when rebuilding an offense and MIA has just that.  They had a top-10 o-line last season and just used their first pick on Kadyn Proctor, who will be a Week 1 difference maker.  This team is going to be able to run the ball and with De’Von Achane officially joining the upper echelon, this offense could go from being 24th in rushing attempts and 21st in rushing TDs, to top-five in each category.  Not to bury the lead, but everything hinges on the massive free agency acquisition of Malik Willis.  Willis just got paid an absurd amount of money with almost no track record, but if he hits, the MIA rebuild gets to start on the 20th floor.  When you add in the essentials, a very good and possibly great o-line, a great RB and a dual-threat QB who won’t have to do everything himself, the picture starts to get clearer and the MIA offense suddenly goes from inept to possibly weaponized.

    This team is built around Achane, who finished as the RB5 for the second season in a row, but improved his rushing total by nearly 450 yards and improved his YPR by 1.2.  He’s no longer a gimmick receiving back who needs a bell cow to run between the tackles.  He can do it all, but his career-high 238 rushes is probably the ceiling for how much you want to push it.  You can’t even use last season to project MIA forward as they have a new coach and QB and last season was just a mess on all fronts.  The big question is how will the target dispersal break down.  The former QB excelled on a quick-strikes, but also a vertical attack, this new offense won’t be quite that dynamic.  Last season, they targeted RBs 25% of the time (3rd) and WRs only 53% (25th).  I don’t expect that to change and the WR number could even go down even further.  We just don’t know how far Willis has progressed as a passer.  Is he going to be Lamar Jackson in his first full season, aka MVP candidate or Justin Fields?  I lean more towards Jackson, but he’s not going to throw 40 TDs, probably not even 30.  I just know that I’m buying the MIA offense on all fronts.


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