Quick Slant: MNF - The Rams and Dolphins Have Played Bit Parts in 2024. Can One Get Back to the Top of the Call Sheet?
Dolphins @ Rams, Monday @ 8:15 PM
The neons of South Beach, the 18ks of Hollywood – each can only serve as distraction. Monday Night Football rolls into two of the NFL's glitziest markets; underachievement is in the starring role.
The Rams, at 4-4, and the Dolphins, at a dismal 2-6, were each projected to light up the scoreboard and contend this season. Los Angeles was supposed to bounce back into form, led by the trailblazing Sean McVay – an offensive guru with Super Bowl cred. They had paid their penance by sitting out a year after they won the whole enchilada in 2022. Did it seem fair they could bounce back so quickly? No, but genius often eclipses fair. Instead, 2024 greeted the Rams with a rash of injuries, revealing just how thin the entire operation at SoFi still is. Voldemortian reanimation can be an arduous process.
Across the field, Miami hoped to double down on the dazzling success of last season’s offensive explosion under HC Mike McDaniel, as McVay himself once was, a blooming bud from the Shanahan tree. McDaniel brought sizzle and swagger, flooders without socks, and unrivaled speed to South Beach last year, making Miami the next apparent landmark in football evolution. This year, though? Different story. Tua Tagovailoa’s concussion cost him four games, set the team back almost as many, and revealed their high-flying offense as all glitz and no grit. Critics wonder if Miami can ever bring the hammer or if their DNA has too much finesse in a league that demands occasional resilience.
But here they are on Monday night, both franchises hoping the prime-time lights will illuminate redemption rather than inferiority. The Rams are heating up, each is becoming healthy, and the Dolphins still feel like a loaded gun. In a pivotal inflection point in each team’s season, which can prove they’ve got the stomach for the fight, which will be recast as a playoff exile?
Dolphins’ Implied Team Total: 24
Miami enters Monday night ranked just 27th in EPA per play and 19th in offensive success rate. Last year, they were fourth in EPA per play and offensive success rate. This represents the steepest decline in EPA per play from any team in the NFL from 2023 to 2024.
The Dolphins have a legitimate excuse for much of this: Tagovailoa, who led the NFL in passing yards a year ago, suffered a concussion late in the game in Week 2 against the Bills. He was placed on injured reserve, causing a four-game absence.
In the four games Tagovailoa has played, the Dolphins have scored 21 points per week, which would rank between the Rams and the Colts at No. 22 in team points per game – not exactly the third-ranked 27.9 PPG from a year ago. So, it appears, it can’t all be laid at the feet of one actor.
Tagovailoa’s rate reveals him as essentially the same player he has been since McDaniel became the head coach: He is experiencing the best completion percentage and adjusted completion percentage of his career, and his EPA + CPOE Composite is at the second-highest rate.
It is conceivable that we could chalk it up to Tagovailoa's one bad game against Buffalo in Week 2. This is the only game in which he had fewer than 230 yards; if we isolate this from the equation, Tagovailoa averages 267 yards per game and 19.63 PPR apart from it.
In the three games Tagovailoa played outside of Week 2, the Dolphins have scored 24.67 PPG and would be on pace for 8.5 wins based on the Pythagorean wins formula. We want to be careful when rearranging stats to make a point, but it is at least plausible that Tagovailoa had one bad day against a good defense, and the rest of his outings this year have been more in line with what we are accustomed to.
Jaylen Waddle scored over four fewer fantasy points per game in the five games when Tagovailoa was out or failed to reach 230 yards.
Waddle was a top-12 fantasy receiver in his first two seasons; last year, he fell out, but many of his rate stats were still quite good. In 2023, Waddle's problems were related to missed time due to injury and poor TD luck; based on TDs/YDs regression analysis, he was just outside of the top ten in positive regression likelihood.
This year, Waddle’s YPRR is down to 1.31, the lowest of his career. In 2022 and 2023, his YPRR hovered around 2.5, which is elite. His FPOE/G is the lowest it has ever been at a 76th-ranked 0.4, and his EP is nearly four points lower per game than it ever has been. His market share is at 16%, also the lowest of his career by far.
Tyreek Hill has scored almost ten fewer fantasy points per game in these five games, but Hill is not keeping pace with his unbelievable 2023 regardless.
