100 Questions: Fantasy Football 2024 (Miami Dolphins)

As we head toward the start of the 2024 NFL and fantasy football season, FTN Fantasy editor-in-chief Daniel Kelley is asking (and attempting to answer) the 100 most pressing questions in fantasy football. This is 100 Questions. Today: The Miami Dolphins.

There are a variety of reasons why a team might not win a division title. A bad year. Bad luck. A stud team out in front.

There are fewer reasons why a team might not win a division title for a while. If you go 20-plus years with 0, 1, 2 division titles, it says more about you than your opponents, at least in theory. In practice, there are six NFL teams that have won 2 or fewer division titles since realignment before 2002. And by cumulative record in that time, one of these things is definitely not like the other:

Team	Division Titles 2002-2023	Wins	Losses	Ties	Winning Percentage
Miami Dolphins	1	166	189	0	0.468
New York Jets	1	149	206	0	0.420
Jacksonville Jaguars	2	136	219	0	0.383
Las Vegas Raiders	1	135	220	0	0.380
Detroit Lions	1	132	221	2	0.375
Cleveland Browns	0	126	228	1	0.356

The Browns, Lions, Raiders and Jaguars have been pretty uniformly terrible the last 22 years. The Jets have been mostly terrible. The Dolphins? They’ve been … below average, but just. They have the 20^th-best record in this time frame, better than the Bears (4 division titles), Rams (4) and Buccaneers (6) and just a hair shy of the Panthers (5). If the NFL had just enacted my so-logical-it-hurts realignment idea (Dolphins to the AFC South, Colts to the AFC North, Ravens to the AFC East), the Dolphins wouldn’t be a dynasty or anything, but that’s a team that would have won more than one division title in 22 years.

The Questions

62. Is It Jaylen Waddle 2022 or Jaylen Waddle 2023?
63. Raheem Mostert? De’Von Achane? Jaylen Wright? I Don’t Know, Jay Ajayi?
64. Is Jonnu Smith Relevant?

100 Questions for 2024: Miami Dolphins

Is It Jaylen Waddle 2022 or Jaylen Waddle 2023?

Through three years of his career, Jaylen Waddle has career highs of 140 targets, 104 receptions, 1,356 yards, 8 touchdowns, 259.2 PPR points, WR8 fantasy finish, 2.63 yards per route run and a 90.9 PFF receiving grade.

The problem? They haven’t coordinated much at all. The targets and receptions came as a rookie in 2021, the yards, touchdowns and fantasy results came in 2022, and the YPRR and grade came in 2023.

BALTIMORE, MD - SEPTEMBER 18: Miami Dolphins wide receivers Tyreek Hill (10) and Jaylen Waddle (17) line up next to each other on the line of scrimmage during the Miami Dolphins versus Baltimore Ravens NFL game at M&T Bank Stadium on September 18, 2022 in Baltimore, MD (Photo by Randy Litzinger/Icon Sportswire) — BALTIMORE, MD – SEPTEMBER 18: Miami Dolphins wide receivers Tyreek Hill (10) and Jaylen Waddle (17) line up next to each other on the line of scrimmage during the Miami Dolphins versus Baltimore Ravens NFL game at M&T Bank Stadium on September 18, 2022 in Baltimore, MD (Photo by Randy Litzinger/Icon Sportswire)

It’s not quite as simple as this, but at the base level, the problem for Waddle last year was that there was an allotment of production for he and Tyreek Hill each of the last two years, and last year, Hill took a greater share. The two combined for 600.4 PPR points in 2022 and 575.0 in 2023, with Hill going from a 56.8% share of that production to 65.5%. Dolphins quarterbacks threw for exactly 30 touchdowns each year, but Hill went from 7 to 13 while Waddle went from 8 to 4. So really, the crux of this question is whether we think Hill will do what he did again, with Waddle there to do whatever Hill doesn’t or can’t.

And here’s where I say that I’m lower than the consensus on Hill this year. He has consistently seen the field less the last few years, with his snaps falling from 905 to 901 to 866 to 799 to 695 since 2018 (ignoring 2019, since he missed four games to injury). It’s a pretty clear sign that the Dolphins have been playing him when they are using him and resting him when he’s not expected to directly be involved. Now, Hill is 30, and his body isn’t going to get more durable.

To be clear, I would still take Tyreek Hill as an easy WR1. But I don’t have him at all in consideration for being the WR1 — he’s more like the WR5 or WR6 for me. And that means I expect Waddle to rise back. He was WR8 in 2022. He was WR34 in 2023. He’s WR20 in ADP for 2024. That’s a reasonable ADP, but I’m comfortable bumping him up to the WR15 or so range.

Raheem Mostert? De’Von Achane? Jaylen Wright? I Don’t Know, Jay Ajayi?

To be clear: Not Jay Ajayi. Not the guy who hasn’t played since 2019 and hasn’t been relevant since 2016. I just wanted to illustrate that the Dolphins are loaded with about a billion different running backs who either are now or have been relevant to our interests at some point in the not-too-distant past. Jeff Wilson Jr. is still on this roster, and you might remember we’re only a season removed from him having a monthlong stretch of 16.9 PPR points per game for this team just in 2022. Salvon Ahmed reached double-digit PPR points three times in six games back in 2020. And those are the guys we don’t care about.

The guys we do care about? Well, De’Von Achane just set efficiency records, Raheem Mostert just led the league in touchdowns, and rookie fourth-rounder Jaylen Wright brings the second-fastest 40 time at this year’s combine to the team that uses speed more than any other. And this brings me to my recurring canard: Look at what teams do. The Dolphins, who had Achane and Mostert already in the fold (not to mention Wilson and Ahmed) used a fourth-round pick — their third pick in a draft where they definitely had a defense and line that needed upgrades — on a running back. That doesn’t mean Wright is guaranteed a huge role, but it does scream that he will have a role that we have to pay attention to. Add in that Mostert is entering the 10^th year of a career where he’s been very brittle and Achane is one year into a career where he’s speedrunning the list of injury concerns, and I’m not saying it’ll be a whole committee, but it will be a mix that frustrates fantasy managers.

MIAMI GARDENS, FL - SEPTEMBER 24: Miami Dolphins running back De'Von Achane (28) runs for positive yardage in the second half during the game between the Denver Broncos and the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, September 24, 2023 at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, Fla. (Photo by Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire) — MIAMI GARDENS, FL – SEPTEMBER 24: Miami Dolphins running back De’Von Achane (28) runs for positive yardage in the second half during the game between the Denver Broncos and the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, September 24, 2023 at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, Fla. (Photo by Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire)

Achane is RB11 by current ADP. Barring injury for Mostert — and drafting needing an injury to happen is bad strategy — that pick not only expects Achane’s efficiency (7.8 YPA last year was the most ever for a back with 100-plus carries by a full yard) to continue, it requires it. There’s just no justification for taking Achane as a back-end RB1. You can definitely argue in favor of Mostert as a back-end RB2, but that also depends on him continuing to score touchdowns at an elite rate. If I’m drafting one Dolphins back in 2024, it might just be Wright, who is available in the 50s among running backs and could find himself in an elite role if even one of the oft-injured backs in front of him misses time.

Is Jonnu Smith Relevant?

The last time the Dolphins got even 100 PPR points from a tight end, Mike McDaniel was the offensive coordinator in San Francisco. Durham Smythe, who has been with the team both years of McDaniel’s tenure, leads the unit with 63 targets the last two years. Mike Gesicki, who was only there in 2022, is the only other tight end with even 10-plus targets.

The Dolphins don’t really use tight ends!

Which makes it very curious — at least to me — that the Dolphins not only signed Jonnu Smith this offseason, they jumped the line for the opportunity to do so, signing Smith (after the Falcons released him) four days before the March 11 start of the legal tampering period. Back to the “believe what teams do” thing, if a team that never uses tight ends as offensive weapons sprints to get one — especially one who has traditionally been average or worse as a blocker — and then does nothing else at the position, you need to consider exactly what that team has in mind. What is unique about Smith that the Dolphins might want to utilize?

Well, on a Falcons team last year that had Drake London, Bijan Robinson and Kyle Pitts, the fastest speed any Falcon reached with the ball last year was Smith, long known as one of the fastest tight ends in the league. And if you exclude Taysom Hill (who defies classification and is only called a “tight end” because what the hell else do you call him?), Smith is the active leader in tight end rushing yards, the only one since 2000 to reach even 100 yards. That, combined with the brittleness of the backfield and quarterback, makes me think there’s a world where Smith is not only a ball-carrier in Miami in 2024, but he’s the goal-line back. And that’s why I predicted in the Sleepers, Busts & Bold Predictions article on the Dolphins that Smith sets the TE record for rushing TDs. You can’t draft as though that is the case unless and until we see something indicating it’s happening, but it’s something to keep an eye on as we head toward the season, and if it turns out I’m right, he might be a key early-season waiver claim.