The Worksheet, a fantasy football overview by Rich Hribar, breaking down everything you need to know for the Week 4 Miami Dolphins at Cincinnati Bengals Thursday Night Football game.
| Miami | Rank | @ | Cincinnati | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.5 | Spread | -3.5 | ||
| 22 | Implied Total | 25.5 | ||
| 27.7 | 8 | Points/Gm | 21.3 | 10 |
| 21.3 | 16 | Points All./Gm | 18.3 | 9 |
| 55.7 | 28 | Plays/Gm | 75.7 | 1 |
| 66 | 23 | Opp. Plays/Gm | 65.3 | 21 |
| 6.4 | 3 | Off. Yards/Play | 4.5 | 32 |
| 6.3 | 27 | Def. Yards/Play | 4.8 | 7 |
| 34.73% | 23 | Rush% | 38.33% | 17 |
| 65.27% | 10 | Pass% | 61.67% | 16 |
| 35.35% | 7 | Opp. Rush % | 35.20% | 6 |
| 64.65% | 26 | Opp. Pass % | 64.80% | 27 |
- The Dolphins have scored a touchdown on 37.0% (10-of-27) of their drives, the highest rate in the league. League rate is 20.4%.
- Just 18.5% of the Miami drives have gone three and out (without a first down or touchdown), second in the NFL behind the Eagles. League average is 31.4%.
- Miami has converted 53.3% (8-of-15) of their third and long plays (needing seven or more yards), the highest rate in the league. League average is 25.4%.
- The Bengals are 31st in the league in first down rushing (2.9 yards per play) while the Dolphins are 30th (3.3 yards).
- The Bengals are averaging 4.1 yards per play on first down (31st).
- Miami is averaging 6.4 yards per play on first down (fourth).
- The Dolphins are allowing 44.5 yards per drive defensively, ahead of only the Seahawks (48.5 yards per drive).
Quarterback
Joe Burrow: Burrow is coming off his best game of the early season, posting season-highs in yards per pass attempt (7.6 Y/A), touchdowns (three), and fantasy points (23.0) as he closed the Week as the QB5.
The Jets tried to defend the Bengals much differently than both the Steelers and Cowboys did. After those teams played Cover-2 on 36.7% and 50% of the Cincinnati passing plays, the Jets used Cover-2 on just 2.6% of passing snaps. Instead, the Jets opted to get more two-high looks out of quarters coverage, running those looks on a league-high 31.6% of passing snaps. While the Bengals still struggled against those looks (Burrow threw for 4.2 Y/A with a 54.5% completion rate), the Jets got more aggressive than defenses did the opening two weeks of the season and Burrow made them pay.
Burrow was 11-of-16 for 10.8 Y/A against Cover-0, Cover-1, and Cover-3 looks. New York also blitzed Burrow on a season-high 25.6% of dropbacks, in which Burrow connected on 7-of-10 passes for 11.9 Y/A and two touchdowns.
Miami is more of a mixed bag coming into Thursday night. On the season, the Dolphins are ninth in blitz rate (31.1%) but are 19th in pressure rate when blitzing. When Miami has blitzed, they are surrendering a league-high 11.9 yards per pass attempt.
They started the game off Sunday against Josh Allen doing the same. Miami blitzed Allen 35.3% of the time in the first half, allowing 11.9 Y/A and two touchdowns. After the half, Miami only blitzed 21.6% of the time and played Cover-2 33.3% of the time. Playing Cover-2 a season-high 30.3% of the time for the game, the Dolphins held Allen to 6.1 Y/A.
Given those results, you would like to believe they would approach things similarly here against the Bengals and try not to be overly aggressive against Burrow, who has wrecked the blitz dating back to last season and has struggled against shell coverage to open this season. After the Miami defense chased the Bills offense around for 90 snaps in the heat, you would think they would not put their defense in a bind on a short week.
At the end of the day, Burrow is still in play as a QB1 option. From a top-down view, Miami has still allowed back-to-back top-5 scoring weeks to Lamar Jackson and Allen. The Dolphins are currently sitting 28th in passing points allowed per game (19.8).
