Game Overview ::
By hilow >>
- I’m writing this game up first this week, before any injury reports are released, because we should have a clear picture of their respective injury situations for Week 14.
- Dolphins WR Tyreek Hill is done for the season, while Jets WR Garrett Wilson remains on IR.
- These two teams rank 32nd (Dolphins) and 31st (Jets) in PROE over the previous month of play.
- De’Von Achane has accounted for 48.4% of the team’s opportunities in their last three games.
- Achane ranks first in explosive run rate (9.7%) while Breece Hall ranks third (8.0%) among backs with more than 35 carries this season.
JM’S JOURNAL ::
Find JM’s Journal on Friday in The Scroll. If you are an Inner Circle member, you can read JM’s Journal on Thursday in Discord.
How miami Will Try To Win ::
The Dolphins have completely transformed their offensive identity to be rooted on the ground, leading the league in rush rate over expectation and total rush rate in the past month while averaging 31.7 rush attempts per game in that span. That becomes even more impressive when you consider they are averaging only 55.3 plays per game in their last three games (the third-fewest plays per game on the season at 56.0). Furthermore, the structure of the offense has shifted to an extreme emphasis on heavy personnel groupings through the utilization of fullback Alec Ingold and a three-headed tight end stable to include Julian Hill, Darren Waller, and Greg Dulcich. From a macro perspective, these changes make sense considering the loss of Tyreek Hill, allowing the offense to emphasize its best players in De’Von Achane and Jaylen Waddle, who are the only two players to play in near every-down roles. Their defense has allowed them to be successful in those changes as well, recently beating the Bills, Commanders, and Saints while holding them to an average of 14.3 points per game. Most interesting to me is the fact that they allowed those three teams to average 349.7 yards per game, which is right around the 345.2 they have allowed on the season. A big factor in their ability to control game environments the way they have in those games was the seven total takeaways they forced.
After starting the season with 20 or more carries in one of his first nine games, Achane has averaged 21.67 rush attempts and 142.67 rush yards per game his last three times out, while going for 120 yards or more on the ground each game in that span. Achane has not played fewer than 73% of the team’s offensive snaps in four games, hitting 80% or more in three of those contests. Furthermore, Achane has accounted for a ridiculous 48.4% of the team’s total opportunities in their previous three games. You would be hard-pressed to find a back with a more robust workload, with really only Christian McCaffrey rivaling what Achane has put together in the past month of play. The Jets have allowed 4.3 yards per carry this season, but actually rank second in the league in yards allowed before contact. Achane has been most deadly behind man/gap concepts, rushing to an ungodly 7.15 yards per carry behind those blocking concepts, with the Jets notably better against man/gap concepts throughout the season, allowing only 3.42 yards per carry in that split since trading away multiple defensive players at the deadline. New York has also done well at limiting explosives on the ground, making this a neutral pure matchup on the ground for Achane.
Waddle has accounted for a 0.28 TPRR, 2.94 YPRR, 31.4% first-read target rate, and 0.57 FP/RR in the absence of Hill this season, but that has equated to only 13.2 FP/G and just 6.9 targets per game as the team made its transition to a heavier emphasis on the ground game. He still has yet to see more than nine targets in a game this season, averaging just 6.67 targets per game in their last three. He has also gone over 100 yards only once all season. Malik Washington and Waller are next up as far as snap rate is concerned, both playing in situational roles, with Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, Cedrick Wilson, and Dulcich bringing up the rear in package roles. The truth of the matter here is that quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has attempted no more than 23 passes in their previous three games, throwing it more than a modest 26 times only once in their last six contests. That simply leaves very little room for fantasy upside to develop on such little volume.
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