There are 223 regular season games left on the schedule, and most of them will be more noteworthy than what we saw last night from the Dolphins and Jaguars. Nonetheless, every time teams take the field, we learn a little about them, and this one was no different.
Takeaways from Miami at Jacksonville
QUARTERBACKS:
Andy wrote up the preview for this game, and in it, he included a line wondering if Ryan Fitzpatrick is better than Philip Rivers? I think it’s a fair question. Fitzpatrick looked very good on this night, completing 90 percent of his passes, marching Miami up and down the field. One of his two incompletions could have been caught. He’s got a lot more mobility than Rivers, and he’s willing to use it in goal-line and short-yardage situations. He ran in a 2-point conversion in their opener, and they spread the field and let him run in a touchdown in this one. He’s more willing to run physically than other quarterbacks (while that’s probably ill-advised, it’s fun to watch and seems to juice up his teammates).
I like him. At some point the Dolphins will want to put Tua Tagovailoa on the field. But until we get to that point, Fitzpatrick looks like a quarterback you can put on the field in a pinch, if he’s got the right matchup.
On the other side Gardner Minshew had his first lesser game. He tossed 3 TDs in each of their first two. In this one, they sputtered for most of the night. He finished with 275 passing yards, but a lot of cheap production at the end. There were some drops, and he missed some throws – most notably a bust coverage that would have gone for a touchdown at the end of the third quarter. They were playing without their best receiver, but the larger issue, I thought, was that he was under pressure for the entire night. In general, he didn’t get quite enough time to set up and find his guys. I wonder if going forward, there will be more teams that play Jacksonville the way Miami did. When Gardner played well in the opener, the Colts unwisely sat back and let him pick out of his receivers.
In general, Minshew to me looks like a younger version of Fitzpatrick. It’s a lesser team and he’s a modest quarterback, but there will be some weeks that you can use him. Unfortunately, this looked like one of those games, and it didn’t turn out that way.
RUNNING BACKS:
The Dolphins picked up Jordan Howard and Matt Breida in the offseason, but Myles Gaskin has emerged as their starting tailback. He didn’t play much as a rookie, but he’s their guy now. He’s a lot better in passing situations than the two veterans, and he might be more elusive as well. They were figuring this out in their first two games, and this time they went ahead and just put Gaskin in the starting lineup.
Gaskin was excellent on the first drive, with his first 7 carries going for 35 yards. But they went away from him in the second quarter (plugging in Breida for a spell), and then a higher percentage of plays were getting blown up. Gaskin’s final 15 carries went for only 31 yards.
Gaskin is a good pass catcher. He caught 4 and 6 passes in the first two games, and he caught 5 in this one. I think he’s their back, and it’s going to stay that way.
Breida didn’t play much in this game, finishing with 3 carries for 4 yards. He’s not as good as Gaskin on passing downs (and Miami will be coming out looking to pass on most downs).
Howard doesn’t have enough speed, elusiveness or pass-catching ability to fit this offense. They’re using him only as a short-yardage runner. Think Larry Kinnebrew or Robb Riddick. He did punch in a touchdown, and had other goal-line carries. Oddly, three weeks in a row he’s run for touchdowns despite averaging under 1.0 per carry in all three games. I’m not sure that anyone’s ever done that before; I will look into it.
On the Jacksonville side, I like James Robinson. There are limitations. He doesn’t have much speed or elusiveness. You can see why he went undrafted.
But he’s a lunch-pail guy. He runs hard. And he’s been making plays every week. He hurdled a tackler in the opener against the Colts. He went over 100 yards at Tennessee. In this one, he somehow stayed on his feet after taking a big hit, and he was able to burrow into the end zone for a 1-yard touchdown on a player where I don’t think most NFL running backs would have scored. I had him starting in place of Saquon Barkley in a league, and it occurred to me on the second touchdown that Barkley probably wouldn’t have scored on that play; Barkley would have instead tried to bounce it outside.
Chris Thompson plays in obvious passing situations, but he’s been in that role for three weeks with little impact. He caught a nice touchdown against the Titans, but I just don’t see enough from Thompson where I would ever put him in a fantasy lineup with any real hopes of a positive result.
WIDE RECEIVERS:
To me, DeVante Parker is the clear No. 1 for the Dolphins. Nice player, and Fitzpatrick isn’t afraid to fire in balls, even if he’s not wide open. Using PPR scoring, Parker put up the 2nd-best receiving numbers in the entire league in the second half of last year, including 802 receiving yards in his final eight games. I think he’s still that same guy. Troy Aikman pointed that Parker can’t run right now because of a hamstring injury. When Parker is right physically, he could be a top-15 type receiver the rest of the way.
The Dolphins have another Parker-type receiver, on the other side, Preston Williams, but he doesn’t quite have the same ability. He’s not as fast. They use him around the goal line, at least. He caught a touchdown in this one. Against Buffalo, he caught a 2-point conversion and dropped a ball at the goal-line that would have been a touchdown.
For the Jaguars, they were missing DJ Chark. That was unfortunate. He’s supposed to be their Parker-type weapon. He’s their best downfield receiver. But I don’t know that they really missed him much on this nice. With Minshew not getting much time to set up and throw, I don’t think he would have been connecting with Chark on much.
The Jacksonville receivers who played were disappointing. None more so than Chris Conley. He dropped a couple of passes (one on their first drive, when they were looking to answer Miami’s opening touchdown, and one on a deep pass in the second half). He also got flagged for offensive pass interference on a third-down catch in the second half. Wasn’t his night.
Keelan Cole has been an interesting player early this season. In his first two games, he caught 11 of the 12 passes thrown his way, with a touchdown each week. So I was expecting more from him in this game. He finished with only 4 catches, and 2 of them came on the last drive, salvaging a mediocre night. When Cole had his big rookie season, they were using him as a downfield weapon; he averaged 17.8 per catch that year. Now they’re using him as a short-range option; he’s at 9.9 per catch after three games.
Laviska Shenault is an interesting rookie. He looks like Anquan Boldin – a big guy who can break tackles. They’ve let him run the ball in every game this year. He had one of the highlight plays of this game, bouncing off a physical tackle after an early catch. Nice player, but they’ve got a bunch of other wide receivers and this is a lesser team – for fantasy purposes, I don’t see Shenault getting over the hump this year.
TIGHT ENDS:
Mike Gesicki seems to be developing into a top-10 tight end. Nice player who can really get up in the air. And they use him around the goal line. Against Buffalo, he had a sick one-handed catch and a touchdown. In this one, they went to him for a 15-yard touchdown, and they tried to get him the ball on another goal-line play. He’s not going to catch 80 balls. He’s not a Kittle-Kelce type. But they’ll use him in the red zone.
For the Jaguars, I have toyed around with the idea of whether Tyler Eifert might be something, given his red zone abilities in the past. This team can pass some. But three weeks in, Eifert doesn’t look any better than their other tight end, James O’Shaughnessy. I didn’t write down the exact words, but there was a point in this game where Troy Aikman went on a weird riff, trying to make the case that O’Shaughnessy is some kind of feared or difference-making tight end.
KICKERS:
Josh Lambo didn’t play in this game for Jacksonville. He’s on IR with a hip injury, so the plan is for youngster Brandon Wright to play the next three games. But they may have to look at other options. Wright suffered some kind of groin injury when missing an extra point late.
DEFENSES:
This game served as a reminder that teams do make corrections. Miami’s defense was a disaster in Week 2, getting torched by Josh Allen. But they showed up with a completely different scheme for this one (with a lot less man coverage) and looked like a credible unit. The pass rush was better, and they didn’t give up any big pass plays. Prior to this game, I had Miami as one of the weak defenses in the league – one we should all be targeting. But I left with the impression that it’s more of an average unit.
On the Jacksonville side, C.J. Henderson was the 9th pick of the draft and had the nice debut against Indianapolis, with a pick against Philip Rivers. But he was ripped up pretty thoroughly in this one. The damage included a touchdown to Gesicki, multiple third-down completions, a missed tackle on an end-around (shortly before their second touchdown) and a play where he not only got beat for a catch by Jakeem Grant but didn’t touch him down, allowing extra yards. Maybe someday he turns into an above-average corner, but he’s not there yet.
And that’s probably a good place to end.
—Ian Allan