The Miami Dolphins visited the New England Patriots for an early divisional face-off in Week 2’s Sunday Night Football matchup. The Dolphins were riding high after beating the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 1 36-34. With Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa putting up a monster game of 466 passing yards and three touchdowns, the hope was that it would carry over to the Patriots game. The same could be said about Mac Jones, who had a stellar game against a stout Philadelphia Eagles defense, throwing for 316 yards and three touchdowns. But that’s the weird thing about divisional games. They don’t always work out like that.
Both quarterbacks came into the Sunday Night Football matchup with higher expectations than what the finished product turned out to be. Both Tagovailoa and Jones were viable options for fantasy managers, but it just didn’t work out this week. For Tua, the Patriots have been known to take away an offense’s best piece or, at the very least, slow it down. More on that later. But after finishing as the QB1 last week, Tagovailoa finished outside the top 20 among fantasy quarterbacks as the Patriots’ defense was more than familiar with their division rival.
Tua Tagovailoa finished the game with 249 yards on 30 pass attempts. He did average a whopping 11.7 yards per attempt, though. He also had a passing touchdown and an interception on the night, finishing with just 12.3 fantasy points. It was a far fall from his Week 1 stats. Mac Jones was just slightly better as he finished the game with 231 yards, a passing touchdown and an interception. Jones finished just ahead of Tua for the week with 14.7 fantasy points, putting him at QB23.
Wide receivers Tyreek Hill and Kendrick Bourne also came back to earth this week. With Bill Belichick opting to take away Hill from the Dolphins’ offense, he only managed 40 yards receiving on five targets. Hill did salvage his Sunday Night Football game with a short goal-line TD from Tua. Bourne’s fall was a bit bigger as he had just four catches for 29 yards. He did see high usage with nine targets, so there may be some better days ahead. Jaylen Waddle also had a solid game with 86 yards receiving on eight targets.
Hunter Henry has also been productive to start the season, and he kept it going against the Dolphins. He posted 52 yards and a touchdown while coming in second in targets amongst Patriots pass catchers. Now here’s where the hurt comes in…
Did you bench Raheem Mostert because of the Patriots’ defense? If you did, don’t feel bad. I did too. But Mostert went off, scoring two touchdowns on the ground, going for eight and 43 yards. Yeah, that hurt watching him go off on my bench. Conversely, Rhamondre Stevenson rushed for just 50 yards on 15 carries (3.3 y/a).
Hopefully, some of these players didn’t adversely effect your fantasy weekend, but there will be ups and downs all season. Buckle up. Sunday Night Football is just getting started.
