Malik Willis Fantasy Value With Dolphins: What It Means for Your Roster

Miami added Malik Willis on Monday shortly after announcing that they would be releasing Tua Tagovailoa.

Willis joins a new staff in Miami that is made up of many familiar faces from his stint in Green Bay.

Jeff Hafley was hired as the new head coach, while Jon-Eric Sullivan was hired as the general manager.

Let's examine the fantasy football implications of this move for Willis' fantasy value as well as how this signing affects De'Von Achane and Jaylen Waddle.

For full contract details and more of a “real football” look at the biggest moves, see our NFL Free Agency Signing Tracker.

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Malik Willis Fantasy Value With the Miami Dolphins

Willis was able to resurrect his career backing up Jordan Love with Green Bay.

Over the past two seasons with the Packers, Willis completed 70 of 89 passes (78.7%) for 972 yards (10.9 yards per pass attempt) with 6 touchdowns and 0 interceptions.

Despite the hyper-efficient play, we still do not have a large sample size for him in the NFL.

Willis has played 548 career snaps with only six starts through four years in the league.

We have another two games of Willis playing at least 60% of the snaps.

Malik Willis Career Game Log

Willis is the type of fantasy asset capable of spiking for front-end fantasy output, logging two top-six-scoring weeks over his three starts with Green Bay.

He led all quarterbacks over the past two seasons in fantasy points per snap (0.73).

For some context, Lamar Jackson (0.62) and Josh Allen (0.61) are next up.

The small sample and the move from Green Bay to Miami do cast some doubt on Willis' overall upside since the Dolphins are clearly in a reset season, but this is a shot in the arm for his value not only for 2026 but also in Dynasty formats, where he had bottomed out since the NFL Draft.

We know Willis can run, which will be the vehicle for a higher floor for fantasy.

Willis had a 14.5% scramble rate with Green Bay, the highest in the league.

Jayden Daniels was second at 13.4%.

Willis has posted 8.9 yards per scramble, which is fifth in the league.

That rushing production will insulate Willis as a fantasy starter over a full season while giving him weekly upside.

While Willis climbs into the upside QB2 range, his ultimate ceiling will come down to his passing production coming along for the ride.

This is still a prove-it type of deal for Willis, and we have seen athletic quarterbacks bounce around in recent years, such as Justin Fields.

Willis has a small sample size with a lot of handholding.

15.7% of his passes were screens.

The only passer to throw 50-plus times over the past two seasons with a higher rate of screens is Chris Oladokun (20%).

With Willis on the field, his offenses have dropped back to pass only 40% of the time.

With Green Bay, that rate was 38.7%.

His last start with the Packers in Week 17 last year against Baltimore was the most encouraging bullish sign for Willis.

In that game, Green Bay was missing starters up front on the offensive line, Josh Jacobs left with an injury, and the offense was forced to rely on him more as a passer.

Green Bay had a 75% dropback rate on the 36 offensive snaps with Willis on the field that night.

We are once again working on a light sample, but Willis has also held up when pressured.

Under pressure with Green Bay, Willis was 17 of 20 (85%) for 353 yards (17.6 Y/A) with 2 touchdowns.

Those are unsustainable rates (league averages are a 49.3% completion rate and 6.3 Y/A when pressured over the past two seasons), but the last few paragraphs here keep the lights on for Willis as a thrower of the football when pushed and pressured.

De'Von Achane & Jaylen Waddle 2026 Fantasy Value

While this move boosts Willis' value across all fantasy formats, the potential impact on De’Von Achane and Jaylen Waddle is in question.

We know that the Dolphins want to run the football with the addition of Willis in Bobby Slowik’s offense.

Are they good enough to play in those types of game scripts?

How Malik Willis Impacts De'Von Achane's Fantasy Value

Achane is coming off an RB5 season in fantasy points per game (20.2), posting 1,838 total yards and 12 touchdowns on a career-high 305 touches.

Achane has double-digit touchdowns in all three seasons in the league, but the catalyst for his fantasy upside has come through the passing game.

Since entering the league, Achane is the RB3 in receptions per game (3.9), the RB7 in receiving yards per game (29.0), and has 13 receiving touchdowns, which is second at the position.

But those familiar with Achane for fantasy have always been cognizant of his splits with and without Tagovailoa.

De’Von Achane With & Without Tua Tagovailoa

Achane has played in eight games without Tagovailoa over the past two seasons.

He averaged 10.5 PPR points with one RB1 scoring week in those games.

In his starts with Tagovailoa, Achane posted 20.3 PPR points per game.

Last season, things did not bottom out without Tagovailoa to the degree they did in 2024, but Achane still saw a dip in output.

He was the RB14 (18 touches for 90 yards) and RB17 (21 touches for 112 yards) in his two games without Tagovailoa while playing with Quinn Ewers.

We already highlighted the potential impact Willis could have on top-down passing volume, given his style of play and his tendency to scramble.

We talk about this all of the time, but we have to be wary of receiving backs playing alongside mobile passers.

Miami already had a low pass rate in 2025, but that was with a stationary quarterback who got the ball out fast and targeted running backs.

Willis only targeted his running backs 10.2% of the time with Green Bay.

The only quarterbacks with a lower target rate to running backs over that span are Riley Leonard (9.4%) and Anthony Richardson (8%) among 74 passers with 50-plus attempts.

I do not expect Achane to bottom out, and his upside-per-touch will still be intact, but the transition from Tagovailoa to Willis does ding Achane as a volatile RB2 for me entering this offseason.

Achane is currently the RB6 and a first-round pick in fantasy drafts early this offseason, which is a price I am not willing to pay.

How Malik Willis Impacts Jaylen Waddle's Fantasy Value

The same concerns regarding passing volume carry over to Waddle.

We already saw the impact on his output a year ago when playing in a low-wattage passing game.

After Tyreek Hill was lost for the season, Waddle was pushed into the WR1 role we craved.

While active from Week 5 to Week 17, Waddle was the WR12 in team target share (24.3%), the WR1 in share of air yards (48.4%), WR10 in target rate per route (26.2%), and the WR7 in yards per route run (2.47).

But he was WR26 in fantasy points per game over that stretch (12.2) because he was running 24.5 routes per game (WR62) as Miami was 30th in the league in dropback rate (53.5%).

Waddle is currently the WR25 in early ADP.

I would prefer a larger discount, but that is fair and offers some best-ball upside.

While the passing volume for Miami remains a concern, Waddle could get an upgrade in terms of downfield passing.

Willis takes a step of faith as a downfield passer, given the sample size we keep harping on, but Tagovailoa struggled with arm strength and downfield accuracy while Willis was willing to take shots.

Tagovailoa only threw the ball 20-plus yards on 7.8% of his pass attempts the past two seasons, which was 32nd out of 33 quarterbacks who qualified for the league’s passer rating.

Tagovailoa had a 37.7% inaccurate throw rate on throws 20 or more yards downfield the past two seasons, which was 31st of that same group.

He completed 32.8% of those passes, which ranked 26th on the same list.

Willis threw the ball 20-plus yards downfield on 18% of his throws with the Packers.

On those passes, he had a 100% on-target rate, completing 13 of 16 passes (81.3%) for 456 yards (28.5 Y/A) with 2 touchdowns.