Packers vs Dolphins Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 16

The Worksheet, a fantasy football overview by Rich Hribar, breaking down everything you need to know for the Week 16 Green Bay Packers at Miami Dolphins Sunday afternoon Christmas Day game.

Green Bay	Rank	@	Miami	Rank
6		Spread	-6
20.25		Implied Total	26.25
20.5	20	Points/Gm	24.6	9
22.4	15	Points All./Gm	24.6	26
62	21	Plays/Gm	59.4	26
59.2	2	Opp. Plays/Gm	65.1	26
5.6	12	Off. Yards/Play	6.2	2
5.6	22	Def. Yards/Play	5.5	17
42.63%	16	Rush%	37.67%	29
57.37%	17	Pass%	62.33%	4
50.18%	30	Opp. Rush %	39.08%	6
49.82%	3	Opp. Pass %	60.92%	27

The Dolphins are 4-0 this season against teams with a losing record as opposed to 2-5 against teams with a winning record.
The Packers are 1-5 against teams with a winning record.
The Dolphins have converted 12-of-47 (25.5%) of their third downs over the past four weeks (30th in the league) after 42.6% prior (10th).
Miami is allowing 1.36 points per dive at home (third in the league) as opposed to 2.71 points per drive on the road (32nd).
Since Week 9, the Packers are seventh in the NFL in points per drive (2.37) after ranking 26th prior (1.56).
19.1% of the Miami passing plays have gained more than 15 yards, the highest rate in the league.
73.9% of the Miami yardage has come via passing, third in the league.
44.6% of the yardage allowed by the Packers has come via rushing, the highest rate in the league.

Quarterback

Tua Tagovailoa: Tagovailoa turned in another mixed performance on Saturday but made enough big plays to close as the QB12 (18.1 points).

Tua completed just 56.7% of his passes and had the middle of the field taken away again. He finished with a 38.2% success rate (26th in Week 15) while finishing 7.5% below his expected completion rate. But even while struggling again, the Miami team speed still prevailed as Jaylen Waddle had a 67-yard touchdown where he looked like the fastest man on the planet, and then Tua made a great anticipatory boundary throw to Tyreek Hill for a 20-yard touchdown on a go route.

We have some downright poor to uneven games from Tua here the past three weeks, but he still leads all quarterbacks in passing points per attempt (0.575). We may have elevated him too highly to locked-in top-six status while he was crushing the Bears, Lions, and Browns, but it is hard to still not treat Tagovailoa as a QB1 option — especially in a week littered with weather concerns.

Green Bay is blitzing on 42.1% of passing plays (second in the league) but is still 21st in rate of man coverage (23.0%) on those plays. Even through Tua’s issues of late, he still has thrown for 11.1 yards per attempt with three touchdowns against the blitz over the past three weeks.

From a top-down stance, the Packers are 16th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.426) while allowing a 4.7% touchdown rate to passers (26th) and 7.3 yards per attempt (21st). What has bailed them out in the overall points allowed department to quarterbacks is that Green Bay has faced a league-low 27.8 pass attempts per game.

Aaron Rodgers: Rodgers completed 73.3% of his passes on Monday night, his highest rate in a game since Week 3. He also threw for 7.6 Y/A, his fourth-best rate in a game this season. Unfortunately, he still only threw for 229 yards and one touchdown, finishing as the QB23 (10.9 points).

Rodgers now has finished higher than QB12 just once this season. His 220.9 passing yards per game are his fewest in a season as a starter. Rodgers has thrown for 250 yards just once over his past 10 games.

We have not been able to trust Rodgers as more than a QB2 based on his limited ceiling to this point of the season, but this is a potentially good spot for him based on the matchup and this game itself has no weather issues.

Miami has wonky home splits this season compared to the road, but outside of Josh Allen, they have faced Mac Jones, Kirk Cousins, Kenny Pickett, Jacoby Brissett, and Kyle Allen in their games at home this season. On the road they have faced Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Zach Wilson, Jared Goff, Justin Fields, Brock Purdy, Justin Herbert, and Josh Allen. The Miami home field is borderline diabolical given the setup with the sun on the visitor sideline, but it is easy to see why they have such dynamic home and road splits based on opposing quarterback play.

Rodgers has left great matchups against the Lions and Bears as a QB2, so we cannot fully trust him as more than a fringe QB1, but Miami is allowing 16.6 passing points per game, 30th in the league. If he is out there in leagues where you may have lost Jalen Hurts, he is arguably the best fill-in among options that are not locked in on rosters everywhere.

Running Back

Aaron Jones: Jones cashed in 21 touches for 126 yards and a touchdown on Monday night. Jones now has finished in the top 15 of weekly scorers among running backs in six of his past eight games even though he has just two games as a top-10 scorer over that span.

We have seen A.J. Dillon start to get more work as the season has progressed, which has reduced the opportunities for Jones. Jones has handled 57.7% and 53.9% of the backfield touches in his past two full games, which makes him live on efficiency firsthand. Jones has played just five offensive snaps inside of the 5-yard line this season compared to 10 for Dillon.

Miami has been solid against the run, but weak against pass-catching backs, which should favor Jones as a fringe RB1 option. The Dolphins are allowing 11.3 rushing points per game to backs (seventh) but are allowing 12.7 receiving points per game to the position (30th).

A.J. Dillon: Dillon was forced to exit Monday night with a possible concussion, but he has already been cleared and looks to be on track to play Sunday.

Dillon has started to come around this season. He has scored four times over his past three games, while also posting 88, 119, and 71 yards. Dillon also has three catches in each of those games. Dillon still does not have more than 14 touches in a full game played with Aaron Jones since Week 4, but he has worked his way into the RB2/FLEX option drafters thought they were selecting.

This is a potentially fragile spot for Dillon as a road underdog against a Miami defense that has been better against the run than the pass. Miami is allowing 3.80 YPC to backs (fourth) while ranking fifth in rate of those carries to result in a first down or touchdown (19.6%).

Miami RBs: The dormant Miami run game got going on Saturday with Raheem Mostert rushing 17 times for a season-high 136 yards. Mostert added a 20-yard reception to his total. With Jeff Wilson inactive, those 18 touches were the most Mostert has had in a game since the team acquired Wilson.

Wilson is expected to be back this week to potentially muddy the waters here for an inconsistent backfield, but Mostert also did operate as the lead back in Week 13 prior to Wilson’s injury in Week 14 against the Chargers.

This backfield has not had consistent usage or production so we could easily see things change at any moment here, but this is a strong matchup for Miami to stay active with the run game.

The Packers have allowed 5.0 YPC to backs (28th) and 16.3 rushing points per game to backs (26th).

Even with Wilson returning, Mostert is an upside RB2/FLEX with Wilson a matchup-based FLEX.

Wide Receiver

Tyreek Hill (TRUST): Hill has stayed hot through all of the hardships this offense has faced recently. Saturday night he pulled in 9-of-13 targets for 69 yards and a touchdown. After a scoring drought to open the season, Hill cannot stay out of the end zone of late, catching a touchdown pass in five of his past six games. Hill has seen double-digit targets in three straight games and in nine games this season.

As mentioned with Tua, Green Bay is blitzing at the second-highest rate in the league. Hill has a 40.0% team target share against the blitz (second to only Davante Adams) while Hill has been targeted on 41.4% of his routes against the blitz. Green Bay has also allowed nine touchdowns to opposing WR1 targets, tied for the second most in the league.

Jaylen Waddle: After slow output over the previous four weeks, Waddle reminded us that he can provide a spike week at any given moment and doesn’t need a lot to get there.

Waddle only caught three passes on Saturday against the Bills, but his receptions went for 15, 32, and 67 yards, the latter of which went for a touchdown.

Waddle is not getting peppered with the same target opportunity as Hill, but he still has a wide gap over the third target in this offense. The Packers do blitz a lot but sustain playing a high rate of zone coverage (72.9% of passing plays).

Waddle draws a lot more target opportunity against zone coverage receiving a target on 25.3% of his routes against zone compared to an 18.3% rate versus man coverage. Waddle is an upside WR2.

Packer WRs: The Packers spread out targets on Monday night with Romeo Doubs coming back to action.

Christian Watson ran a pass route on 93.9% of the dropbacks and still led the receivers with six targets, catching four for 46 yards. We knew Watson’s touchdown streak was inevitably going to end while he had yet to catch more than four passes in any game. There was always floor potential here when that streak ended, but Watson’s route rate while still leading the group in targets and drawing two red zone targets was a large positive.

Miami plays man coverage on 38.9% of passing plays, second in the league. Against man coverage, Watson has been targeted on 32.1% of his routes as opposed to an 18.6% rate against zone coverage. I would go right back to Watson as a boom-or-bust WR2 option.

Lazard ran a route on a team-high 97.0% of dropbacks on Monday, but once again failed to draw targets, catching 1-of-2 targets for seven yards. Lazard hasn’t scored since Week 9 with just one WR3 scoring week over his past five games, but if you do need to chase something here, Lazard also has strong man coverage splits, which we brought up last week facing the zone-based Rams. Lazard has been targeted on 27.0% of his routes against man coverage compared to 15.2% versus zone. Lazard is a matchup-based WR3/FLEX and potential DFS stacking partner here.

Doubs caught all five of his targets for 55 yards Monday, but he also only ran 10 pass routes. That target rate per route is impressive, but we also need a lot more to bite into for playing time.

More Week 16 Fantasy breakdowns from The Worksheet: