2025 Miami Dolphins Fantasy Preview: Make or break for Tua Tagovailoa

NBC Sports

4 days ago

The Dolphins gave us more of the same in 2024. They were dynamite when Tua Tagovailoa was healthy and a disaster when their quarterback was out of the lineup. Business as usual. Despite the spreadsheets going brrr, the design of the offense was vastly different, creating jaw-dropping risks for fantasy managers in 2025.
2024 Miami Dolphins Stats (Rank)
Points per game: 20.3 (22nd)
Total yards per game: 325.4 (18th)
Plays per game: 63.6 (9th)
Dropbacks per game: 42 (9th)
Dropback EPA per play: 0.09 (15th)
Rush attempts per game: 26.4 (19th)
Rush EPA per play: -0.25 (31st)
Tua on the hot seat
The Dolphins played two games with Tua to start the year before he suffered a concussion that landed him on injured reserve. That sent Miami scrambling and left them with Tyler Huntley at quarterback. The move, in turn, forced them into a check-down scheme for the ages. Their team aDOT of 6.7 was the third-lowest of the last decade. Head coach and offensive mastermind Mike McDaniel schemed up easy throws for his backups and kept that philosophy in place even when Tua was active in the second half of the season. This resulted in career receiving numbers for Jonnu Smith and De'Von Achane, but the wide receivers were left hanging.
Injuries were also an issue on the other side of the ball, but Miami's defense held on and finished the regular season ranked eighth in EPA per play. We're probably discussing at least a playoff loss for the Phins if McDaniel knew how to get more out of his backup quarterbacks. Instead, McDaniel is on the hot seat and Tua's career is on the ropes.
Passing Game
It's hard to stress this enough, but Tua was one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the league last year. Tagovailoa ranked:
EPA per play - 7th
Completion percent over expected - 8th
Adjusted completion rate - 2nd
Huntley, on the other hand, couldn't match that production. He ranked:
EPA per play - 37th
Completion percent over expected - 12th
Adjusted completion rate - 12th
Huntley showed some ability to execute what was asked of him, but, at the end of the day, his efficiency was putrid. That's to say nothing of a single dreadful start made by Skylar Thompson and a few comically futile snaps from Tom Boyle. As expected, all of the Miami players experienced drastic splits with and without Tua.
Will Tagovailoa play a full season this year? Who knows. He's undoubtedly more prone to concussions and likely to spend longer on the bench when that does happen than the average passer. In redraft—where you can cut players at will—his availability is not an issue. The 2024 passing yardage leader is free money as the QB22. The risk becomes much more tangible in Best Ball drafts where you are stuck with him for the entire season.
Moving to his receivers, Miami simply gave up on their explosive passing game last year, leaving both Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle out to dry. Hill's falloff from 3.72 yards per route to 1.75 is one of the most dramatic falloffs of the past decade. If Hill's woes were exclusively related to his wrist injury or the design of the Miami offense, he could easily bounce back as a WR1 in 2025. He started to pick up the slack at the end of the season with two 100-yard games over the final five weeks. On the other hand, if he simply lost a step as the league's premier speed receiver, his days as an elite fantasy asset are over.
Waddle experienced a similar dropoff in efficiency—cratering from 2.5 YPRR to 1.5—but he's five years younger than Hill. You wouldn't expect him to be past his prime already, though that's not entirely impossible. Waddle is going at a discount compared to his 2024 ADP, but drafters are far more confident in him rebounding compared to Hill. He has fallen 24 spots versus last year while Hill is down 20 spots. Given the value of early-round picks, that's a massive discount for Hill and only a modest markdown for Waddle. Hill offers a better ceiling outcome and comes at a better price relative to his 2024 cost. If you want to gamble on this offense, he's your man.
Miami only had one other relevant pass-catcher last year—Jonnu Smith—and they just sent him packing to Pittsburgh. Smith emerged as a premier checkdown option in Miami's stunted offense. He averaged a 6.9/67/.9 receiving line over the final eight weeks of the season. Even including his slow start, only four tight ends averaged more yards per route than Jonnu (1.95) on the season. The Dolphins lured Darren Waller out of retirement to replace Smith. Waller averaged 1.55 YPRR, 9.4 PPR points per game, and had a 73.1 PFF receiving grade in his final season with the Giants in 2023. All three marks were top-15 among tight ends. He could be a viable seam-stretcher for Miami if he still has some juice in 2025, but it's hard to bet on a player who last played an (almost) full season in 2020 and has spent more time in the past year pursuing a rap career than professional football.
Malik Washington's 2024 stats tell you all you need to know about Miami's WR3. He averaged .86 YPRR, good for 105th in the NFL. That put him just a handful of spots ahead of dead last among wide receivers. He wasn't bad with the ball in his hands. The rookie posted 4.7 yards after the catch per reception, placing him 38th among qualified wideouts. He simply couldn't earn a target to save his life in a crowded pass-catching room. Whether he or free agent addition Nick Westbrook-Ikhine wins the WR3 job is immaterial to fantasy managers.
Running Game
Miami's underwhelming passing output was surprising, but their dead-on-arrival ground game was shocking. Their -.21 EPA per play average on rush attempts ranked 315th out of 320 team-seasons over the past decade. Raheem Mostert ran for 18 touchdowns at 4.8 YPC in 2023. He found the end zone twice at 3.3 YPC last year. Achane, the team's lightning-in-a-bottle on the ground, went from 7.8 YPC—the highest market for a running back with at least 100 attempts in NFL history—to 4.5. Achane also set the record in NFL Next Gen's rush yards over expected metric at 2.87 per carry two years ago. The previous high-water mark was 1.86. He fell to -.42 RYOE per attempt in 2024, one of the worst marks in the league. While some of this can be chalked up to Achane running hotter than the sun as a rookie, a large part of his decline has to be blamed on the environment.
Miami's stuff rate (carries stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage) was 29.3 percent last year, the fourth-highest mark of the past decade. Achane is a back who thrives on clear runways but doesn't have the power to turn small losses into modest gains. With the team's offensive line collapsing and the threat of a deep shot vanishing from the passing attack, Achane never had a chance to show off his home run speed last year. The good news is that he became a de facto third receiver for the Phins by leading all running backs in slot routes (120) and wide routes (58). Achane caught 78 balls for 592 yards and six scores. He led all running backs in all three categories, allowing him to finish as the PPR RB5 despite the poor rushing metrics. With Jonnu gone, his receiving role gives him an unprecedented floor. The upside for elite efficiency also gives him an immense ceiling.
Jaylen Wright appears to be in line for the RB2 role with Mostert being cut early in the offseason. Like Achane, Wright's rushing metrics were underwhelming to say the least. He averaged a paltry 3.7 YPC on 68 attempts as a rookie. Miami only spent a sixth-round pick on Ollie Gordon and $1.4 million on Alexander Mattison as potential replacements for the backup job. GM Chris Grier traded a future third-round pick to move up for Wright in the fourth round last year. He isn't guaranteed the backup gig or any standalone work, but an RB51 pricetag is a minimal cost for a likely handcuff in an offense built on efficiency.
2025 Miami Dolphins Win Total
DraftKings Over/Under: 7.5
Pick: Under (-105)
The Dolphins are an all-or-nothing team. Either Tua stays healthy and the team excels or he misses time, McDaniel is fired, and the team looks to reset in 2026. I'd take the under on them this year, given the fragility of Tagovailoa's health and the potential for Hill to be over the Hill (pun intended). If you want to bet overs, taking a long shot like +750 to win the AFC East makes more sense than a simple win total play.