Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Franchise Focus: Miami Dolphins

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) and Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) preview the Miami Dolphins 2021 season in the companion podcast to the 2021 Franchise Focus piece on FantasyPoints.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time for the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Ladies and gentlemen, we are rolling on with the franchise focus podcast series. I am Graham, and I'm with Scott today. Joe and Tom are, again, they're out. you know, one of their buddies is getting married up in Virginia. They're hanging out with their family.

So we're giving them some much needed time off for today. Scott and I are going to be breaking down the Miami Dolphins. And I want to encourage everybody, if you haven't already, checked out all of these fantastic franchise-focused articles. They're all up on the site right now. Go get them. And if you haven't subscribed to the site, 21 Barfield 10. That gets you 10% off.

Any subscription on the site, it'll get you a 10% off. off a premium package where Tom Brawley's been breaking down alongside the franchise focus. Team profiles, he's been breaking down every team from a betting perspective. So favorite props on like Miles Gaskin, Devante Parker, go check that out as well. But Scott, let's start here. The dolphins went all in, man. They're all in on Tua. They went out and got Will Fuller and Free Agency, spent the sixth overall pick on Jalen Waddle.

Everything is kind of set up for Tua to take a big second year step. Now, that being said, Tua last year was significantly, significantly worse than Ryan Fitzpatrick. Both of these things can be true. Two is going to take a second year step. But at the same time, this offense was not as good with Tua on the field last year. Look, I think the toughest part of this team is the skill positions. And let's start there. So we'll start with Parker, Waddle, and Fuller.

Right now, ADP has it. In best ball, it's kind of depends on your. where you're drafting, but it's usually Fuller Parker and then Waddle. Fuller usually goes an eighth, ninth, ninth, ninth, tenth, and Waddle's like 10th. Do you have any preference on any of these guys here? Yeah, I really don't at all. You know, Parker smashed two years ago if it's magic and, you know, didn't really do much of anything last year with Tua.

Actually, Mike Jaseki was his most targeted receiver when he was under center. Waddle, you know, exciting rookie, but he's still a rookie. Yeah, man, I don't know. I've kind of just been steering clear of these receivers. Yeah, I think Parker has been my favorite. I have quite a bit of him when he was like 10th, 11th round in like May and June, but he's since come up. I think really, it's kind of like process of elimination with these receivers. I'm really just kind of off Fuller, which sucks because Fuller was like, you know, you and I were both on Hollywood Brown in the six around last year, but Fuller was my guy in the seventh. And it kind of, it definitely helped out with the, you know, the Hollywood Brown, you know, failing until the last like five or six

games last year. But yeah, man, huge, huge Qubey downgrade between him and Watson. Two has never been, you know, Tula throws a pretty ball, but he's never been like a super aggressive downfield thrower, even dating back to Alabama. I think it's, I think it's safe to say that Fuller's going to regress a little bit in this new offense. Let's talk to Siki real quick because he's always been someone I am much lower on because he's a great athlete, but just looking deep into some of the efficiency stats, he's never been, you know, he's never been super efficient in terms of yards per route run. I just think he's always been a little bit overrated as a football player. And now he's got two new.

targets in front of them with Waddle and Fuller that are definitely going to steal some of that target share away. Where are you at on Gisicki and do you like him and kind of like that tied in 11 through tight in 15 range? Yeah, that's the thing really. It's just a there's a lot of target competition in that offense now. It should take a big step forward. Two is healthy. You know, sophomore quarterbacks tend to make a lead forward. He has the the improved past catching core. It's just hard to pick, single out a guy to target. And that might just be the case all year where, you know, there's boom games,

but no one's really a consistent every week starter for you. Jaseki, I have the same feelings as you. I just never really liked him. I never thought he was much good. And then, you know, the team drafted Hunter Long. I think we see them move on from just get to justici at the end of this year. I think Hunter Long is the starter next year, a guy I like. otherwise he has a lot of things you want you know he is used like Travis Kelsey where he's

basically a big slot wide receiver for the team right but yeah he's not a target for me really none of the receivers are yeah Gisicki was the definition of Feaster Fandom last year he had four weeks where he finishes a top five scoring tight-in and then the other the other 11 he finished outside of the top 12 so he was literally like winning you weeks or completely killing you and being below average. So yeah, you mix in Waddle, you mix in Fuller, even though those guys, maybe Waddle will steal some of those lower A dot targets because he's so good after the catch. But you mix in those two guys. I just really, I don't know, man. I really don't want much of the sickie. It's a tough tier to draft from for sure.

Yeah, he you can make an argument. If you're just sickie guy, you can make an argument. He has the second best overall schedule among all tight ends this year. He was great. He was great. eight towards the tail end of last season, his final five games, seven point eight targets, 15.6, fantasy points for game. Like I said, Tua's most targeted receiver, but he's just not a guy I like. Like you, I've always been lower on him than consensus. And I'm just going to keep going that way until he proves me wrong. Great. Okay, let's transition here to the backfield because surprisingly, the dolphins did not do anything, but it wasn't for a lack of trying. The Broncos actually moved up in front of the dolphins by one pick to snipe Javante Williams

and take him from Chris Greer, their GM's hands. So they were after Javante Williams, and I think if the Broncos didn't make that move, Williams would be a dolphin, but he's not. So we got to deal with some sort of committee backfield with Miles Gaskin being the one. And then, you know, it's going to be a fight between Salvin Ahmed and Malcolm Brown to you know, have the change of pace and maybe some hurry-up duties. So Gaskin right now is going in that like R.B. Dead Zone. If you listen to Scott and I's podcast with JJ Zacharisen a couple weeks ago,

we went super in-depth into the running back dead zone. JJ has a lot of great thoughts and great data about that. So I encourage you to go check it out. But yeah, Gaskin, fifth, sixth round pick, man. It's a tough, like we said, man, it's always a tough reign to draft from because there's so many great Konami Code quarterbacks in that range or so many great receivers and a few tight ends, you got to sprinkle it. So I have not personally found myself drafting Gaskin too much. But again, I think it's one of those things where like the price is pretty fair. And if he ends up getting

a somewhat Valcalf role, he's going to, you know, he's probably going to pay off that pick. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's, you know, Malcolm Brown doesn't really scare me. Salvin Ahmed doesn't really scare me. Although, you know, I don't really believe in Gaskin's talent, but he was hyperproductive from a fantasy standpoint last year. And he did see a Belcow workload from week five until the end of the season, 15.7 carries per game, 4.5 targets per game, 19.7 fantasy points, 18 XFP and a 69% snap share. So just over the full season, those are numbers ranking 7th, 4th, 7 the best in snap percentage, fourth and XFP, third and fantasy points per game. And he ranks just 24th by ADP.

So if he is who he was last year, same exact role, same production, he's one of the best picks he can make. But yeah, there's a lot of Ips. It's does he get that same exact workload? I don't know. You could also say that the offense is going to be, you know, better this year with all the additions that he made. And I think that's certainly true.

But it's, it's one of those. Do you trust the talent? And can we really bank on that workload remaining? I don't know. But at ADP, I think it's a fine gamble. Yeah. Like I said, I think it's an efficient price. You're not paying, you know, you're not overpaying like in previous years where we, you know,

were mistakenly, you know, over, I guess, you know, overestimating the skill level and the role for guys like Damien Williams and, you know, in years past. So you are at least getting a discount there. And I will say, you know, he came off a pretty nasty in the injury that he had early in last year and finished out the season really strong. And he kind of kept Ahmed at day. But yeah, I just, it's hard for me, man, because, like, most drafts, I'm starting with some sort of combination of, like, back in the first round, back in the second round, one of the first two rounds. I'm going with at least one back most of the time. And I just don't think there's a huge drop-off between Gaskin and, like, the fifth or the first.

six round and then some of those guys that go in eighth and ninth round in terms of their outlook. So I've just not really made a huge investment into this backfield as a whole. I think Ahmed and Brown are fine in best ball in like 18th, 19th round. Just last round picks is your RB5 or RB6 and just, you know, hoping that randomness takes its place and Gaskin misses time or whatever. But yeah, it's a funny team, man, because like there's a lot of pieces to like here. just none of them are going super high and no one in the market is really in on them. All right.

Any final thoughts here before we get out of here, Scott? Nah. Nah. All right. I'm with you. I'm with you. All right. That was it.

That was the dolphins. We will be back. Mena. We'll be talking through the Minnesota Vikings, which is a much, much more fun team for fantasy. So for Scott, I'm Graham. Thanks for listening, everybody. and make sure you check out the Dolphins franchise focus article up on the site right now.

Talk to Ray. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoint.com.