The Miami Dolphins pulled off a true Jekyll & Hyde performance in 2019. Josh Rosen took the whole team and threw it in the dumpster. Ryan Fitzpatrick then pulled some pieces out of that dumpster, dusted them off, and turned them into fantasy football gold. What should we remember from the 2019 Miami Dolphins as we gear up for the 2020 fantasy football season?
What to Remember from the 2019 Miami Dolphins Season
- DeVante Parker and Mike Gesicki headlined the passing game breakouts from the 2019 Miami Dolphins’ season. We’ll get to them later, but we can’t remember Preston Williams’ contributions prior to tearing his ACL in early November. Williams managed just four games with Ryan Fitzpatrick after Fitz solidified his hold on the starting job. He topped 70 yards in two of those four games and had two touchdowns in his final game of the year. All told, he played on a 908-yard, 8-touchdown pace. He’s a talented wide receiver, and he expects to return before week one next year. He provides good late-round value for 2020 fantasy drafts.
- Now, let’s get to the best player in the Miami Dolphins’ receiving corps… that’s right, Mike Gesicki time! Gesicki ended 2019 as the TE11 in half-PPR leagues (and as the only person who had him at TE12 or better, I’m calling this a victory lap). His final rank also underscores how stupid tight end evaluation can be sometimes. Gesicki did nothing for most of the year (he topped 51 yards once in the first 12 weeks of the season). He ended the season with 23 receptions for 276 yards and 5 touchdowns in his final 6 games. That’s a 61 reception, 763 yard, 13 touchdown pace over sixteen games. Gesicki should have top-twelve value over the course of the season, but we saw how an inconsistent year can still get him those final numbers.
- I can’t make heads or tails of the Miami Dolphins running back situation in 2019, except that it was bad. Kenyan Drake sucked out loud, totaling just 348 yards in his six games with Miami. After the ‘Phins traded him to Arizona, he went nuclear. Mark Walton totaled 201 rushing yards on 53 carries, and Kalen Ballage ended up with 135 yards on 74 carries. Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick led the team in rushing yards, with 243 rushing yards on 54 carries.
- If you want to know how strange fantasy football twitter gets at times, consider Patrick Laird. A 24-year-old rookie UDFA popped up late in the year, didn’t do much but received numerous headlines for it. Ultimately, he peaked in the last five games of the year. In those five games, he averaged… 55 yards per contest. That’s it. But, he scored one touchdown in that span! So there’s that! Don’t remember Patrick Laird fondly, if you remember him at all.
- DeVante Parker pulled off the oh-so-common fifth-year breakout at wide receiver (that statement was facetious). Parker somehow managed to buck his trend of looking like the best Dolphins WR in camp before falling apart during the season. He received the most targets of his career by 32, and his yards per reception vaulted up past 16.5 after not passing 13.3 since his rookie year. Parker also doubled his career touchdown numbers, going from 9 to 18 last year. It was a huge step forward for Parker, who will likely once again enter camp as the best looking WR in camp and in the best shape of his life, etc. The only question that remains is if his breakout will continue, or if it was a flash-in-the-pan.
Check out the rest of the What to Remember series as it develops!
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