Miami Dolphins 2022 Fantasy Football Sleeper, Breakout & Bust

Every summer, we take a deep dive into the fantasy football average draft position (ADP) of players on each real-life NFL team. We do this so that we can determine which guys are undervalued, overvalued, or valued just right. As we Goldilocks this ADP, our draft board forms based on our opinions of players and where they go in fantasy football drafts. Since drafters draft (mostly) by site algorithms, site algorithms drive ADP on that site. So, we use FantasyPros’ aggregate average draft position data in order to smooth out those edges. To really smooth out the edges, I will use half-PPR average draft position, which you can find here.

These aren’t your daddy’s Miami Dolphins, but they might just be your grand daddy’s Miami Dolphins (who went undefeated). We just need to know if Tua Tagovailoa is good or not yet, at entering year three… we still aren’t sure. But what we are sure about is that the 2022 Miami Dolphins’ offense will bear little resemblance to the 2021 iteration. They added Mike McDaniel, Tyreek Hill, Terron Armstead, Cedrick Wilson, Chase Edmonds, Raheem Mostert, Sony Michel, and most importantly, re-signed Mike Gesicki. What will the 2022 Miami Dolphins give us in the realm of fantasy football sleepers, breakouts, and busts?

Sleeper: Sony Michel, Running Back (RB52, 169 OVR)

That’s right, Sony Michel is back, and in Mike McDaniel form! Michel is rightfully buried on the depth chart behind Chase Edmonds and Raheem Mostert. Those two should get the bulk of the carries until one or both of them suffers an injury and misses time. Okay, until Raheem Mostert gets hurt. And Mostert has missed at least seven games in three of the last four seasons, mustering just nine games across 2020 and 2021. So, waiting for a Mostert injury isn’t as hard as it might seem.

Michel intrigued me with the Rams last year. He had to end up somewhere that didn’t ask him to do anything outside of his one-cut-and-go wheelhouse to produce on it (which is exactly where he ended up). Last year, Michel ended up on the Rams, who didn’t really need his services, giving him just about 9 touches per game as Darrell Henderson’s backup. Fast forward to week 13, and the Rams need to turn the ball over to Michel. He responded with 27 touches for 129 yards and a touchdown. In the last six games of the year, with Darrell Henderson on the shelf, Michel averaged 21.5 rushes and 1.7 receptions per game for 101 yards per contest, and he scored three times in six games. That’s some nice upside to draft-and-stash, waiting for the inevitable Raheem Mostert injury.

Breakout: Tua Tagovailoa, Quarterback (QB17, 120 OVR)

In the waning days of the 2021 NFL season, I opined that if the Dolphins upgraded the line, got a good coach for Tua, and put some weapons around him, that I would have a hard time keeping him out of my top-ten. They went out and signed the best left tackle on the market, traded for one of the best wide receivers in the league, and signed the newest branch on the Kyle Shanahan tree with Mike McDaniel to run the offense. So, Tua went three-for-three there.

With a rebuilt wide receiver corps that now has Jaylen Waddle, Tyreek Hill, and Cedrick Wilson to go alongside Mike Gesicki, and pass catching running back Chase Edmonds, Tua has all the weaponry in the world to make things work. He also has the advanced numbers to make it work, at least according to playerprofiler.com. According to them, he had the best deep ball percentage and a top-ten true completion percentage last year, to go alongside the top red zone completion percentage and a top-ten clean pocket completion percentage. A lot of this came from flipping the ball down to Jaylen Waddle, but the deep ball statistics have to make you sit up and take notice. Tua is going as a backup quarterback in fantasy football leagues, and he has a chance to be a top-ten quarterback when all is said and done.

Bust: Tyreek Hill, Wide Receiver (WR7, 16 OVR)

Tyreek Hill sneakily wasn’t as good as he had been in past years in 2021. He finished the season as the WR7 with Patrick Mahomes. He stayed a week winner, with six top-ten finishes, but he also had eight weeks outside of the top-36. Hill’s always been a boom-bust player, but the busts were mostly mitigated by him getting a good amount of intermediate work, as well. Now he moves to an offense with more targets to feed and fewer targets overall in the offense, and to a new quarterback with whom he doesn’t have the rapport and mind-meld. That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence for Tyreek Hill’s prospects in 2022.

I still have him listed as a top-ten wide receiver in 2022, because you have to. He’s Tyreek Hill! But, Tyreek Hill isn’t going to be someone that I end up having on any of my fantasy football rosters. He offers week-winning upside, but he’s swapped out solid WR2 and WR3 performances for finishing outside the top-36 more than half the time. That’s something that I can’t put on my roster with a mid-second-round pick.