What We Saw: Week 14 Monday Night Edition

The Adam's (Nardelli and Sloate) recap two exciting upsets from Monday Night Football

Ben Brown
What We Saw 5 Months Ago
Series Navigation
Introduction
Packers @ Giants
Titans @ Dolphins

Titans @ Dolphins

Final Score: Titans 28, Dolphins 27

Writer: Adam Sloate (@MrAdster99 on X/Twitter)

 

Gaffes, gutsy plays, and gambles, oh my! Both teams tried really hard to lose this game, with Tennessee making two backbreaking mistakes late in the game in the form of a muffed punt and a fumble. Miami scored off both of those turnovers. And yet, the Titans found a way to turn what looked to be a surefire loss into a gutsy win that is sure to leave fans smiling for the rest of the week. As a result of this win, Tennessee went from the potential 4th or 5th overall pick in the 2024 draft to the 9th overall pick. The Dolphins, meanwhile, are now looking for a bit of help as they chase the Baltimore Ravens for the #1 seed in the AFC.

Until the final moments, the big story of the day was MVP candidate Tyreek Hill‘s injury. Hill was removed from the game for approximately two quarters after an awkward fall on a tackle by Titans DB Sean Murphy-Bunting. He limped off the field after play was stopped, but returned in the waning moments of the third quarter to catch two nice passes. Miami didn’t utilize him on its final few drives because they were granted extraordinarily short fields off the Tennessee turnovers, and he wasn’t targeted on the final two Miami drives. Fantasy managers of both Hill and Tua Tagovailoa will need to monitor his injury status as the week continues because the Dolphins’ offense looked lost without him.

 

Three Up

  • Raheem Mostert – Achane who? Mostert toted the rock 21 times (75% of the carries) for 96 yards and 2 TDs despite sharing the rushing load with home run threat De’Von Achane.
  • DeAndre Hopkins – Hopkins covered for some of Will Levis’ inaccuracies downfield by making last-second, on-the-run adjustments. He also saw 12 targets for the second straight game, dominating the target share beyond the line of scrimmage.
  • Tyjae Spears – Not an exciting ground game for Spears, but he crushed his receiving work and turned in a delightful overall fantasy day. It seems he has the trust of the coaching staff and Levis.

Two Down

  • Tua Tagovailoa – Normally the quickest passer in the game — disposing of the ball in approximately 2.3 seconds on average — Tagovailoa took 5 sacks and threw for just 240 yards and no scores.
  • Derrick Henry…? – I hesitate to put Henry here because he scored two rushing TDs, saving fantasy managers’ bacon everywhere, but he was terrible from an efficiency perspective and had just one reception.

 

Tennessee Titans

 

Quarterback

 

Will Levis: 23/38, 327 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 1 sack | 4 carries, 15 yards

The Mayo Man got off to a rocky start, throwing a pick-six on the Titans’ second possession of the game. The rocky start didn’t stop there, as Levis, completing fewer passes than expected (10th-worst in football), was true to form by throwing a handful of inaccurate passes that probably would have been incompletions if not for a vintage performance from DeAndre Hopkins. Levis threw three (3!) passes that had completion probabilities of less than 33.3% that Hopkins turned into completions. Take a look at this play, where Hopkins makes the incredible mid-air adjustment to reel in this pass from Levis.

Derrick Henry got in on the receiving action and bailed Levis out a little bit too. Take a look at the air Henry grabs en route to this catch, keeping in mind that no one else is even in the frame until Henry is well into the air to receive it:

To his credit, Levis tightened up (pun absolutely intended) as Tennessee fell behind. On the final two Tennessee scoring drives, Levis threw only 2 incompletions and targeted receivers all over the field. It’s an excusable performance from a rookie, but to ascend in the fantasy ranks, Levis will need to be more consistently accurate.

Notes

  • He was pulled down just shy of a rushing TD early in the second quarter. The next two carries went to Derrick Henry.
  • Levis accumulated a season-high rushing yardage total tonight. He’s not much of a runner, but when he got out from the pocket, he was running angry:

  • Or maybe he’s just looking to hit some people?

 

Running Back

 

Derrick Henry: 17 carries, 34 yards, 2 TDs | 2 targets, 1 reception, 17 yards

As I stated earlier, Henry didn’t impress much with the ground game, and that’s borne out in his yards per carry. His YPC was dragged down a tad by the fact that he had 3 goal line carries and 4 carries within 5 yards of the end zone, but even outside of those carries, there wasn’t much beyond the line of scrimmage for the King:

Play-by-play announcer Chris Fowler said something about Henry and Tyjae Spears that stuck with me: Spears ran onto the field as a sub for Henry, and Fowler said, “They’re going with their athletic unit.” It probably wasn’t meant as a dig at Henry, but he sure didn’t seem like the athletic one of the two backs tonight.

His big highlight of the evening was not the two rushing TDs–those were some standard Derrick Henry goal-line carries. Tonight, it was definitely the acrobatic catch to preserve a Tennessee drive:

 

Tyjae Spears: 7 carries, 29 yards | 8 targets, 6 receptions, 89 yards

This sure felt like the Tyjae Spears breakout game. Tennessee tried to get him the ball in open space wherever possible and it paid off beautifully, as Spears was able to use his significant running juice to run through contact, pick up downhill speed, and find extra yardage. Here’s Spears with a ruled catch-plus-fumble, his longest catch of the night, on a route deep beyond the line of scrimmage:

Given the explosion in his receiving yardage relative to every other week of the season, it’s hard to see Spears playing this well and receiving this kind of attention every week. In fact, he doubled up his receiving yardage on the season thanks to tonight’s effort. But it seems Tennessee is trying to find ways to involve Spears each week, and that can lead to some late-season fantasy gold.

 

Wide Receiver/Tight End

 

DeAndre Hopkins: 12 targets, 7 receptions, 124 yards, 1 TD

Folks, he has still got it. Hopkins was a monster tonight, reeling in passes that others would find uncatchable and saving his QB’s bacon in the process. I think it’s fair to say that Hopkins is back, now that he’s clearly earned Levis’s trust as a safety blanket, downfield target, and general first read. Take a look at Hopkins’ route chart from this evening, which illustrates Tennessee’s usage of him in short-yardage settings and Levis’s trust in him as a downfield threat:

Why is this such a big deal? Well, in weeks past, Hopkins has been used as either a downfield threat or a short-yardage threat, not both. Take a look at this chart from week 11 against Jacksonville. There’s the 50-yard bomb to Hopkins on there, but minimal other looks beyond the line of scrimmage:

The difference in charts, besides the lack of targets, is the diversity in targets, routes, and catches. Hopkins got intermediate looks, he got short looks, and he got looks deep downfield. The diversity of targets shows two things: Tennessee is figuring out how to use Hopkins and Levis and Hopkins are starting to develop trust in one another.

 

Chigoziem Okonkwo: 6 targets, 5 receptions, 46 yards

Not too shabby of an evening from Okonkwo. It was hard to find much that was particularly notable about Okonkwo’s play today — no special catches or plays of note, as far as I noticed — though if fantasy managers zoom out, they’ll find that Okonkwo has now seen 5+ targets in each of his last three games, with at least 45 receiving yards to pair with those newfound targets. Perhaps Will Levis has finally found his non-Hopkins safety valve.

 

Nick Westbrook-Ikhine: 4 targets, 2 receptions, 28 yards

Chris Moore: 1 target, 1 reception, 22 yards

Treylon Burks: 3 targets, 1 reception, 1 yard | 1 carry, 5 yards

Hey, welcome back to Treylon Burks!

 

Miami Dolphins

 

Quarterback

 

Tua Tagovailoa: 23/33, 240 yards, 5 sacks | 3 carries, 15 yards, 1 fumble lost

It was a very puzzling performance from Tagovailoa tonight because he looked uncharacteristically indecisive. Miami’s offense runs on timing plays and quick decisions to augment Tua’s typically strong anticipation and accuracy. When Tennessee forced him to think about his throws for too long, Tua threw some inaccurate passes and took more sacks than usual (previously, Tua hadn’t taken more than 4 sacks and had just 12 all season prior to this game), which caused the offense to stall. Some of that inaccuracy corresponded with the absence of Tyreek Hill, though I’m not comfortable saying that Tua needs Hill to succeed or that Hill’s absence specifically caused the offensive mishaps.

Tagovailoa still found time to make some nice throws to Hill when he was in the game:

He unfortunately found time to fumble the ball away too, making this a very frustrating night for fantasy managers:

 

Running Back

 

Raheem Mostert: 21 carries, 96 yards, 2 TDs

Despite the presence of a presumably healthy De’Von Achane, Mostert was the feature back by a wide margin, carrying the ball 21 times and falling just short of the century mark. With Miami not getting a ton of push on the interior offensive line, Miami ran Mostert to the edges of the gridiron, utilizing his blazing speed to try to beat Tennessee off the edge. It kind of worked?

While Mostert isn’t much of a between-the-tackles guy, and Miami prefers to get him in open space to key in on his speed, he was still getting pushed to the outside more than usual. Mostert’s usual route chart looks like an outstretched hand, showing that he is usually able to find running lanes on the interior of the offensive line, whereas the one above looks a bit like a half-moon. Some of the struggles are due to the absence of starting left tackle Terron Armstead and right tackle Robert Hunt. Center Conor Williams was also injured during the game.

With so many injuries along the line, Mostert is going to have to manufacture some gains along the outside to maintain fantasy success. Thankfully, he was able to do so here.

 

De’Von Achane: 7 carries, 47 yards | 9 targets, 5 receptions, 24 yards

 

Mostert is the main man on the ground but it seemed like Achane was liable to bust out a huge run at any given moment. He was electric with the ball in his hands but he just couldn’t seem to find that second level to get in gear and turn on the jets for a huge breakout play. The Dolphins got him involved in a couple different ways tonight, showing their commitment to both of their speedy RBs:

If it’s not completely clear there, Achane had to stiff-arm his own offensive lineman because he caught up to him so quickly. That’s some serious speed.

What’s frustrating about his production tonight is that Achane could have had an even better stat line if he had been able to connect with Tua on some big plays. There were a couple of instances where, had Achane been able to reel the ball in, he would have been in open space with only some flat-footed Tennessee tacklers to beat. The most notable one was where Achane ran what looked to be a wheel route out of the backfield. He was open along the sideline, running the same route on which Tua had hit Cedrick Wilson earlier for a 22-yard gain and slowed down just enough that he couldn’t reel in the pass from Tua. The passing work is clearly there for Achane, even when the run game isn’t, but his fantasy day was slowed down by the fact that he wasn’t able to turn those valuable passing looks into fantasy production.

 

 

Wide Receiver/Tight End

 

Jaylen Waddle: 8 targets, 6 receptions, 79 yards

It was an excellent night for Waddle, as he stepped up to take on some of those missing Tyreek Hill targets when Hill left the game. Waddle took a big hit on one of the first receptions of the game:

Waddle was able to hang in there and pick up some of the Hill-related slack. And, even when Hill returned, Waddle was still targeted for a couple of nice catches.

 

Tyreek Hill: 5 targets, 4 receptions, 61 yards

 

When Hill was in the game, he was his usual dangerous self. His speed makes him virtually unguardable because he can beat teams over the top or in the side-to-side game, and when he gets into open space, it is very difficult to tackle him. Take a look at just how open Hill is on this play, making the completion look easy:

It was a quiet night on the scoresheet due to the ankle injury he suffered in the first half, but had he been out there for the whole game, I am certain Hill would’ve made plenty more noise.

 

Cedrick Wilson Jr: 4 targets, 2 receptions, 30 yards

Durham Smythe: 3 targets, 2 receptions, 16 yards

Series Navigation
Introduction
Packers @ Giants
Titans @ Dolphins

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