Game Info
Kickoff: Sunday, December 3rd @ 1:00 PM ET
Location: FedEx Field, Landover, Maryland
Betting Odds: MIA -9.5 (opened at MIA -6.5), 48.5 total via OddsShark
Network: FOX
Writer: Adam Sloate (@MrAdster99 on Twitter/X)
Miami Dolphins
Quarterback
Tua Tagovailoa (Start, QB1)
Tua Tagovailoa has been up and down a bit as of late. Over his last three weeks, he has averaged just 13.6 fantasy points per game in standard scoring leagues, thanks to a handful of interceptions and an offense that has stalled a bit over the past few weeks thanks to injuries from key players. In fact, every member of the Dolphins’ projected starting offensive line has picked up or has been dealing with an injury over the past couple of weeks. Miami’s line got even more banged up after Friday’s game against the Jets, with Terron Armstead picking up a week-to-week quadriceps injury. The offensive line play has really hurt their run game most of all, and we should know by now that a weak run game in a Shanahan-style offense isn’t particularly friendly to offensive success.
The good news for Tagovailoa and Co. is that of all the teams to take advantage of this banged-up offensive line, it’s not likely to be the Commanders. Now that they’ve traded away two high-end pass rushers in Chase Young and Montez Sweat, the one strength of the defense has turned into another toothless unit on a toothless defense. Last Thursday, Washington was shredded by Dak Prescott in Dallas; Prescott passed for 331 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INTs, and took no sacks. Tommy DeVito was taken down 9 times against the Commanders…but who hasn’t taken down a Giants QB behind the human turnstiles they have playing up there in New Jersey? Three weeks ago, Washington sacked Geno Smith just once and surrendered an atrocious 369 passing yards and 2 passing TDs. Four weeks ago, in the game following the trade deadline, Washington sacked a famously very sackable Michael McCorkle Jones zero times. In other words, despite substandard offensive line health for Miami, Tua should still be okay against this Washington front seven.
In other good news, Washington carries the friendliest matchup for opposing QBs in terms of fantasy points allowed. In fact, they’ve allowed an average of 22.2 QB FPTS per game across Weeks 1-12. That’s an average of QB1 fantasy production. Despite the poor offensive line health, there is just too much in Tua’s favor this week for fantasy managers to not go after his upside in this generally explosive offense. Start him!
Running Backs
Raheem Mostert (Start, if Achane plays, RB2, if not, RB1), De’Von Achane (Start, RB1 if healthy?), Jeff Wilson Jr. (Start only if Achane is out, Flex)
Raheem Mostert, like Tagovailoa, has been a little up and down in recent weeks, but if you zoom out and look at his entire season, Mostert has been a revelation. Averaging over 5.2 yards per carry with a low-end RB1 workload is terrific. He’s lost a bit of that passing work lately, as it’s gone mostly to Wilson, but the rushing efficiency and ability to find the end zone regularly have buoyed Mostert’s value. He’s startable every week if healthy, even if the middling offensive line play hinders his efficiency a little bit. We only have a 3-week sample size of Mostert and De’Von Achane sharing the field at this point, and one of those was the 70-20 laugher against the Denver Broncos, so it’s too early to say what a regular workload for Achane will look like for Mostert’s fantasy production. However, I can’t see Achane getting too many carries this week if he plays, given that the Dolphins have been extraordinarily careful with him recently — they may try to temper his workload a bit by limiting his carries. Mostert should have a pretty standard workload this time around, and he gets to do it against a team with a friendly-ish matchup to opposing RBs in terms of fantasy points (12th-most).
Achane has participated in and completed just three games this season with a “full workload,” which were Weeks 3-5. Achane totaled a mind-boggling 99.8 PPR fantasy points across those three weeks — which includes the 70-20 Broncos game, so keep that in mind — but was still good enough for 30th in PPR scoring among RBs, nestling him in between Javonte Williams and Chuba Hubbard. If he plays close to a full game, Achane’s upside is absolutely enormous. Even with a handful of carries, Achane has enough homerun speed and explosive play potential that he should be starting for every fantasy manager that has invested in him. He’s Keaton Mitchell, but cooler and better!
The largest benefactor of Achane’s absence last week was Jeff Wilson Jr., who tallied his most significant rushing output and workload of the season against the Jets. JWJ ended up with 11 carries on the day, which is 4 more carries than the rest of his season combined, despite missing Miami’s Week 11 game against the Raiders. His rushing workload likely won’t end up being so hefty again, given the relative lack of usage earlier in the season and the fact that he’s still somewhat recovering from an injury, but if he gets a few carries and continues to see the passing game work of weeks past (3 catches in each of his last two games), he should squeak into flex value. Note that he should only be started if Achane is out again.
Wide Receivers/Tight Ends
Tyreek Hill (Start, WR1), Jaylen Waddle (Start, fringe WR1), Everyone Else (Sit)
Two great wide receivers facing a team allowing the second-most fantasy points to opposing wideouts? Okay!
Note also that the Commanders rank 22nd in PFF’s pass coverage metric, rank dead last (most favorable) in terms of EPA per pass play, and have not once played successfully against an above-average QB/WR room this season (Hurts (34 and 38 pts allowed by WAS), Allen (37), G. Smith (29), Prescott (45), and Tommy DeVito (31)).
Washington Commanders
Quarterback
Sam Howell (Start, QB2)
Sam Howell is an interesting fantasy play because he has not thrown for less than 250 yards since Week 6 of this season, meaning he already has a solid fantasy floor. In standard scoring leagues, he’s hitting 10-12 points based on passing yardage alone lately. What gives me pause is that Howell is liable for an interception or three just about every week. In all but 4 weeks this season, Howell has thrown for at least one interception, for a total of 13 (in 12 games). He’s been able to salvage his value in recent weeks, despite the INTs with rushing TDs in back-to-back games. However, I’m sorry to tell all the Howell Howlers that he isn’t going to keep up this blistering rushing TD pace since he’s tripled his rushing TD output for the season over the past 2 weeks.
A pretty surefire way to add on more fantasy points via the passing game is to throw the ball a lot. And, what do teams do when they’re trailing by a bunch of points? Hint: It rhymes with “shmow the shmall.” With the Dolphins now up to 9.5-point favorites, Vegas, the sharps, and the magnetic zeroes expect the Commanders to be trailing by a bunch of points late in the game, which should force the ball into Howell’s hands. Now, that didn’t work out quite so well via the passing game last week, given that the Commanders only scored two TDs (one by Howell, one by Dallas CB DaRon Bland), but Howell has enough of a track record of slinging the ball and scoring fantasy points that this week, it should work out a bit better fantasy and real life-wise. The Dolphins aren’t the friendliest matchup for Howell here, but the loss of superbly talented pass rusher Jaelan Phillips and the large volume of pass attempts Howell will have should help him throw for a passing TD or two to return at least QB2 value.
Running Back
Brian Robinson Jr. (Start, RB2?), Antonio Gibson (Start, Flex)
The corollary that comes with “QBs typically throw the ball a lot when their team is down a lot of points” is that RBs end up losing most of their rushing workload in that situation. For players who are heavily dependent on the run game to return fantasy value, it can be a real bugaboo for fantasy owners when the RB’s real-life team has to abandon the run to play catch-up.
I can’t quite place the receiving workload Brian Robinson Jr. will get at this juncture. Last week, with the game out of hand very quickly, Washington went to its backup RB, Chris Rodriguez. But, in the prior two weeks, Robinson saw a tremendous amount of passing game work, unlike anything he had produced this season. Even stripping the long 51-yard reception from Robinson’s line in Week 10, he still cleaned up in the passing game, doubling up any prior single-game receiving yardage output. But the passing game work came out of nowhere! His previous single-game high in receptions before Week 10 was 4, and then he posted 6 and 7-reception games in Weeks 10 and 11. Furthermore, it’s not like BRJ’s work came at the expense of Antonio Gibson — quite the opposite, actually, as Gibson’s increase in receiving output coincides with BRJ’s increase in receiving output — so is it possible we’re just seeing OC Eric Bienemy lean on his running backs to produce in the passing game?
Robinson has enough of an established workload, between his rushing workload and recent receiving work, to warrant starting consideration. If this newfound passing work is for real, and the Commanders can keep it close enough that they don’t need to put in the third-stringers in the 4th quarter, Robinson could hit RB2 status. For now, if he doesn’t score, he’s a high-end flex.
Antonio Gibson’s game logs look pretty uniform over the last couple of weeks. In fact, thanks to his 5-ish receptions per game over the past 4 games, Gibson has hit at least flex status in each of them. Even in the blowout loss to Dallas last week, Gibson still picked up just enough fantasy points to return flex value in PPR leagues. He offers a decent floor, thanks to his passing game work, but he’s not getting enough attention in either the passing or the running game to return more than flex value without a TD.
Wide Receivers/Tight Ends
Terry McLaurin (Start, WR3), Jahan Dotson (Start, Flex), Curtis Samuel (Start, Flex?), Logan Thomas (Start, TE2)
Terry McLaurin has the workload pedigree to be a safe WR3 this week, especially with the bump in passing attempts from the Commanders likely trailing in this game. However, I am slightly concerned with Terrifying Terry’s matchup against this Dolphins defense, which folded in Jalen Ramsey. Ramsey projects to match up against Troublesome Terry quite a bit this week, which could hamper his overall production. Ultimately, Terrific Terry’s volume and connection with Howell should put him squarely in WR3 territory this week but don’t expect a huge game from him.
Jahan “Josh Doctson” Dotson has returned at least flex value in each of the last two weeks and in five of his last six weeks. He’ll be matched up more often with the Dolphins’ second outside corner, Xavien Howard, who hasn’t reached the his levels of old lately, meaning that targets, catches, and yardage are all gettable for Dotson. He should be able to reel in a handful of those Howell targets to return at least flex production.
Samuel and Thomas both get bumps from me because Miami is above average in terms of points allowed to receivers in the slot (Samuel is the Commanders’ primary slot guy) and is above average in terms of fantasy points allowed to opposing TEs. As fantasy players reading this particular section may know, Samuel’s workload is extraordinarily inconsistent, so he presents a riskier investment, but the matchup isn’t too bad and the volume of passing (the rising tide) should add some extra juice to Samuel’s line (all boats).
Thomas, meanwhile, has a bit of a size edge over Miami’s two primary coverage linebackers, David Long and Jerome Baker, as Thomas is at least 4 inches taller than either of them. The size advantage could lead to some easier or less-contested catches in the middle of the field for Thomas. Moving to the more grounded statistical analysis, Thomas has hit at least TE2 value in all but 2 games this season. He’s good for at least 5 targets, though lately it’s been much higher than that, and at least a handful of catches. He’s got a safe floor and can comfortably be started regardless of matchup.