Issue #297: Pet Detective
By Derrick Ernst
August 02, 2026
Dolphins
August. Geez the weez. We have football this month. Let’s go!
I don’t know who at ESPN has it out for D. Achane, but here we go again:
AGAIN! It’s not just Moody. And the way this headline reads is as if they know it’s ridiculous saying what there are, but they’re going to do it anyways and put a caveat on it in case it goes against them. This almost makes me want to draft Achane even more. RB24, RB7, and RB6. These are his fantasy finishes in his three seasons in the league, in that order. How much does one need to prove that he belongs before the narrative around him changes? Apparently three years isn’t long enough. Perhaps four will be.
Before moving on, I did want to touch on a teammate of Achane’s that was left out of Thursday’s newsletter, TE, Greg Dulcich. He’s someone that will likely go undrafted in your league, but given what MIA is working with, perhaps he shouldn’t. Let me ask you a question, right now, can you name a MIA WR on roster? I’ll admit it, I can’t. Here are there starting three according to ESPN:
Milek Washington
Jalen Tolbert
Tutu Atwell
Fair to say that they’re all career WR3’s? The kind that you pick up to fill out your starting roster when you’ve run into bye week trouble and you hope that they pay off so you can look like a genius to the rest of your league. Sound familiar? I’ve done it too.
None of these guys have played more than four seasons in the league. Here’s the kind of fantasy performance that would come of these three if we were to take the best statistical output from each of them and combine them into one. Actually, J. Tolbert’s ’24 campaign bested each category (79 tgts, 49 reps, 610 yds, 7 TDs) so no need to go through our little exercise. He finished as WR45 that year. That’s what we’re dealing with: a WR room with more questions than answers and a RB that is questioned more than most despite answering the call in more ways than one.
Let’s get back to Greg. It’s not like he has had the best of starts to a career either:
Source: Fantasy Footballers
The OC for MIA is Bobby Slowik who was the passing game coordinator for MIA last season. Before that he was the OC for HOU. There were three QBs who saw the filed for MIA in ’25:
Tua Tagovailoa
Quinn Ewers
Zach Wilson
If you combined the talents of these three and created a player who would you get? Probably new MIA QB, Malik Willis.
Lets say that in a lot ways MIA’s offense is schemed the same as it was last season. Yes, there will be puts and takes, but the sum of all parts will look similar. If that’s the case, you’re looking at a team who targets:
RB’s 25% of the time (3rd in ’25)
WR’s 53% of the time (25th in ’25)
TE’s 22% of the time (22nd in ’25)
We’re already bulled up on Achane, that isn’t changing. What I am thinking is that I’d rather have the one TE seeing 20ish% of targets than one WR of a group of 6-8 who are seeing 50ish% of targets. I’m a big believer in security blankets for unproven talents and there’s a lot of that in MIA at the moment. Dulich is a returning talent that Slowik is familiar with. That can’t be said for most of the other skilled position players. He’s a dart throw and one that may be better served as a waiver wire addition, but remember me when you are in need and Dulcich is starring back at you as an option.
WR Quick Decisions
In continuation with Thursday, here’s where my head is at with a few WRs:
Jaylen Waddle, DEN: I’m in. I hope my recent biases towards DEN don’t bite me in the rear later, but I think this Nix/Waddle connection could be really special. Remember what I say about coaches “hand picking” other players. This is one of those times. This isn’t a knock on Sutton, I’ve been a big fan, but Payton saw a need and filled it with someone who he’s going to ensure is an integral part of his game plan. I usually lean into where I can extract the most value, and while Waddle is much more expensive than Sutton (R4 vs. R7), I believe over the course of the season we’re going to see the gap widen between the two that warrants their ADPs.
DJ Moore, BUF: Warning, do not draft Moore with the expectation that he’ll be Diggs of old. Let some else in your league do that. This will happen too and my guess is that he’ll likely be drafted earlier than expected because of it. When it comes to BUF, I simply go back to the fact that they’re a run-first team. With Joe Brady as HC, that won’t change. I’d rather stack Allen with Cook than Allen with Moore. I’ll die on this hill. If you have different thoughts about Moore, just be careful.
Christian Watson, GB: I want to pull the trigger, I really do, but it just doesn’t make much sense. GB extended him this offseason as if they were trying to say to the fantasy community that he should be drafted in all formats, but can you make sense of his career so far? You’re basically paying for 5-7 tgts/gm in R5 where you could draft the like of Q. Judkins, T. Warren, M. Evans, and J. Burrow — all guys I want more. Truthfully, I think GB’s front office wants Love/Watson to so badly evolve into Rodgers/Adams or Farve/Driver that they’re going all in to see it through. I’m done playing a fool.
Source: Fantasy Footballers
Drake London, ATL: If it’s going to be like this all season, which it might, I don’t want any part of it (below). You’d think Stefanski would catch a break from the QB carousal leaving CLE for ATL, but nope. I believe I mentioned before that London was WR15 last season despite playing in only 12 games. That’s incredible. There’s no denying his talent, I’m just put off by who’s going to be throwing him the ball. In some ways, ATL may turn out to be the CLE of last year. Just saying.
You know those times where addition by subtraction is the best case scenario? This feels like one of those times for SF. By the way, I don’t know what it is about SF and injuries, but even their HC can’t stay out of the Emergency Room. Sheesh.
What do you think, one last hurrah for Deebo in SF? He costs nothing. SF’s has some old receiving options. The chance Deebo is what people thought Evans would be, for one reason or another, isn’t 0%. Take that for what it’s worth.
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