This week looks to have less potential than previous weeks for scoring

With three games on Thursday http://www.dolphinscheapshops.com/cheap-authentic-robert-quinn-jersey , fantasy football players need to get their lineups in place before scarfing on turkey and pie. with the Falcons-Saints game on Thursday night shaping up to have the most fantasy upside.Playoff time in most fantasy leagues is looming, which makes this a make-or-break week for many teams. START: T.Y. Hilton, WR, Colts: Questions about his hamstrings were emphatically put to rest when he torched the Titans with nine receptions for 138 yards and two scores last week. After recording just 15 targets in a three-game span, Hilton has 16 in his last two games and faces a Dolphins pass defense that is 29th in the league in average yards allowed per reception. A dialed-in Andrew Luck (seven straight games with at least three touchdown passes) will have no problem finding his featured pass catcher.SIT: Deshaun Watson, QB, Texans: Take away his five-TD performance against the Dolphins in Week 8, and Watson has just six touchdown passes in his past five games. That doesn't bode well against a Titans defense that still ranks fourth in fewest fantasy points allowed per game despite being lit up by the Colts last week. Watson no longer offers the bonus of running the ball, which makes him sideline material for fantasy players this week.START: Duke Johnson Jr., RB, Browns: He's once again RB2/flex viable in PPR formats after catching all 13 of his targets for 109 yards and three touchdowns in his last two games. Expect the good times to continue for Johnson and his fantasy owners, who get a plum matchup against the Bengals, who are 31st in fantasy points allowed per game to opposing running backs. Cincinnati is also 31st in receiving yards allowed and rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield is improving.SIT: Alex Collins, RB, Ravens: Collins is too touchdown-dependent to garner much value and has seen his touches decline since getting 19 carries in Week 6, falling to just seven last week against the Bengals. The unexpected rise of Gus Edwards makes an already-crowded Baltimore backfield more cramped, which means Collins will see limited touches against a Raiders defense that is 31st in rushing yards allowed.START: Carson Wentz, QB, Eagles: Don't be discouraged by Wentz's poor effort in the loss at the Saints. With the Eagles ranked 25th in rushing and their chances of defending their Super Bowl crown beginning to slip away, expect Wentz to throw at will against a Giants defense that he lit up for three touchdowns in Week 6. There's little chance of Zach Ertz catching just two passes or Golden Tate being a nonfactor in consecutive weeks, so bank on Wentz rebounding.SIT: Emmanuel Sanders, WR, Broncos: After consecutive 100-yard games in Weeks 6 and 7, Sanders has flattened to a combined 160 yards in his last three games. He has suffered without having Demaryius Thomas taking coverage away. And with rookie Courtland Sutton starting to see more targets in his direction, Sanders has fallen from a solid WR2 to a borderline flex. Although the Steelers are 28th in receiving yards allowed, Sanders' recent struggles aren't encouraging enough to take the gamble.START: Tre'Quan Smith, WR, Saints: The 13 targets he had in the win over the Eagles was the same number he had in his previous three games combined. Smith won't have to wait long to exploit a vulnerable secondary, as the Falcons defense he'll see Thanksgiving night is 29th in fantasy points allowed per game to opposing receivers while giving up 21 touchdown passes. He's a strong flex option who is another good game or two away from being a legit WR2.SIT: Aaron Jones, RB, Packers: There's little debate that Jones is now Green Bay's lead back. However, he has yet to record more than 15 carries in a game this season and his matchup against the Vikings appears to be the splash of cold water that stalls him after scoring four times in the last two games. Minnesota is fourth overall against the run and has allowed only five touchdowns on the ground, meaning Jones will need to deliver as a pass catcher to justify having him in the lineup.START: Jordan Reed, TE, Redskins: His production perked up once Colt McCoy replaced the injured Alex Smith at quarterback Cheap Kenny Stills Jersey , resulting in Reed catching his first touchdown since Week 1. The Cowboys are middle of the pack when it comes to stopping tight ends, although the memory of Ertz pulling in 15 catches for Philadelphia against Dallas two weeks ago should be a good reason why Reed's fantasy numbers will continue to swing upward.SIT: Anthony Miller, WR, Bears: With Mitchell Trubisky (shoulder) unlikely to play against the Lions on Thanksgiving, Miller's run of two straight games with a touchdown catch has a strong chance to end, especially if Chicago focuses its attention toward Detroit's 22nd-ranked run defense.START: Eli Manning, QB, Giants: The Eagles secondary is in worse shape than when Manning passed for 281 yards against them in the first meeting this season. With Saquon Barkley and Odell Beckham Jr putting up solid numbers of late, Manning should have a field day on a Philly defense that is 27th in fantasy points allowed per game.SIT: LeSean McCoy, RB, Bills: Don't count on McCoy putting up 110 yards and two scores against the Jaguars, whose run defense is stouter than the Jets run D that McCoy ripped up in Week 10. Even with a big workload, that's a matchup fantasy owners should avoid. Ever since team owner Stephen Ross said at his season ending press conference two weeks ago that the Miami Dolphins might have to go 3-13 next year to get where they want to go, there has been quite of hand wringing and what I like to refer to as manufactured outrage. Both of the major South Florida newspapers that cover the Dolphins, the Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel, have run articles about how ‘tanking’ won’t work and why the Dolphins shouldn’t attempt to do so. As most of the regulars on this site know, whenever I’ve lamented Miami winning meaningless games late in the year, thereby greatly reducing their opportunities to land a franchise type player in the draft, I’ve been met with everything from people citing extraordinary exceptions to the rule -- “Tom Brady was drafted in the sixth round”, “Aaron Rodgers went 24th”, “Marino went 27th”, etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseum, to outright ridicule from my fellow Phinsider brethren. As if something that happened 19, 15 or even 36 years ago has any relevance whatsoever to the here and now.Oh, and they like to bring up Russell Wilson, too, because, hey, quarterbacks who are 5’11” tall win championships all the time. It’s simply amazing how much money is made, and lost, and how much energy is expended by people who really, truly believe that because something happened one time out of a thousand, that it just has to happen again, and that it will happen to them. As I’ve said before Daniel Kilgore Jersey , that’s why they sell lottery tickets. Here in Illinois, millions of people play the ‘Mega Millions’ lottery every year. There’s just one problem: the last time someone won the ‘Mega Millions’ was in 2012, nearly seven years ago. A whole lot of roads have been paved and schools built since then, by what has become known as the ‘tax of the ignorant’. But don’t tell those nice, well meaning folks who stand in line day after day, patiently waiting for the privilege of paying for their tickets. After all, they’re special, so they’re going to beat the one in three hundred million odds against them, or so they believe.When I said a few weeks back that the Dolphins will only get better with better players, one commenter responded with something to the effect of, “Dude, don’t you think we know they need better players?”Honestly, I’m not sure we do know that. If we’re going to sit here and say, with a straight face, that a draft pick in the mid twenties is every bit as good as a top 10-15 pick, because, ‘It’s not where you pick, it’s who you pick’, we might as well go out and join the ‘Flat Earth Society’ (yes, there is such an organization; you can look it up). Does anybody really think that the Dolphins will be as good as the Cleveland Browns next season? Do we think the Jacksonville Jaguars are going to go 4-12 again next year, after playing in the AFC championship game a season ago? Do we think that the Los Angeles Rams amassed their gaudy regular season record solely on the basis of outstanding coaching? Let me help you out a little bit here: the answer to all three questions is, or should be, ‘No’. The common denominator between the Browns, Jaguars and Rams is that they had superior draft position in years that some really good, game changing players were available. Players like Baker Mayfield, Myles Garrett, Joel Bitonio, Jalen Ramsey, Leonard Fournette, Jared Goff, Todd Gurley and Aaron Donald. Both the 2000 Baltimore Ravens and the 2015 Denver Broncos won Super Bowls without even having a franchise quarterback, because they stockpiled stud defensive players that were selected with high draft picks. I don’t mean to sound harsh or negative, but with all the hoopla, hubbub, hullabaloo and ballyhoo going on about who the Dolphins’ next coach is going to be, I really don’t care all that much. He may very well be fired by the time the team gets good again Matt Haack Jersey , anyway. What I do care about is the Miami Dolphins becoming a much better football team, and without a lot more good players, that wouldn’t happen if they brought in Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll or Don Shula, circa 1972. At the risk of stating the obvious, we should remember that all NFL teams run, essentially, the same plays. It’s which players are attempting to execute those plays, along with when they’re called, that matters. I’ll grant you that throwing the ball on third and one, or running it on third and ten probably isn’t a good idea, but then again, perhaps if the team had some linemen who could actually block, they wouldn’t be throwing on third and one to begin with.But, back to the concept of tanking. What does it really mean, really entail? According to Wikipedia, tanking, as it relates to sports, is ‘match fixing, or when a competitor deliberately loses without gambling being involved’.At no time, to my knowledge, has anyone ever suggested that the Dolphins intentionally lose a game for the purposes of increasing the value of their draft picks. I’ve never suggested that, and certainly neither has Stephen Ross. All I’ve said is that the Dolphins have a nasty habit of winning games late in the season, when it has either already been determined that they weren’t going to the playoffs or that if they did go, they would be immediately trounced by the top seeded team in the conference in their very first playoff game. The latter was certainly the case in 2018, when the Dolphins were ranked near the bottom of the league on both offense and defense and also had a lot of players on injured reserve.What I’m fervently hoping for is not that the Dolphins intentionally lose games, but rather, that they don’t expend every last draft pick, every last free agent dollar and make every last personnel move to try and win the Super Bowl that same year. In other words, I’d like them to take their collective foot off the accelerator once in a while, instead of going for all the marbles when they clearly don’t have the horses to try and make a title run. That’s exactly how a team ends up finishing 8-8, which, in turn, leads to . . . . wait for it . . . . more 8-8 finishes! You have to build a team from the bottom up; you have to have a solid foundation in place before you build a house, have an actual cake before you add the proverbial frosting. You don’t spend six draft picks in a three year period on wide receivers when your offensive line has been decimated by ‘BullyGate’. Some of the coaches the Dolphins have had over the past couple of decades seemed as though they were a lot more concerned with their W-L record after they left than they were about the long term success of the team they were coaching at the time. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we need the head coach and the front office for the Dolphins to be on the same page as an organization. If you think that the Dolphins haven’t regressed mightily over the past few seasons Cheap Jason Sanders Jersey , let’s compare the 2018 team to the 2013 edition. In 2013, the second year for both head coach Joe Philbin and quarterback Ryan Tannehill, Miami went up to Pittsburgh in late December and beat the Steelers in the snow. They also, in just the second week of the season, traveled to Indianapolis and whipped the Colts at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, winning the game on the road in the process. Could the 2018 Dolphins have accomplished either of those feats? Of course not.At the end of the day, we’re all just fans here, and we all want to see the team do well. It’s the ‘doing well’ part where our respective opinions have a tendency to greatly diverge. I’ll say it right now: if I have a choice between the Dolphins going to the playoffs as the fifth or sixth seed, or not going to the playoffs, I’d rather they stay home. For the amount of physical wear and tear a playoff run causes the players to have to endure, plus having our draft pretty much ruined three months later, I don’t want to see them in the playoffs. Give me a third seed or higher, or give me nothing. Since the league added wildcard teams to the playoff field in 1978, only four teams over the ensuing 41 seasons have won three consecutive games on the road, in the playoffs, to advance to the Super Bowl: the 1985 Patriots, the 2005 Steelers, the 2007 Giants and the 2010 Packers. Every one of those teams either had one or more future Hall of Famers, a franchise quarterback, a dominating defense or some combination thereof. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see anything in that group of qualifiers that describes any member or unit of the current Miami Dolphins team, unless you want to count Cam Wake, as a potential HOF’er, and who was barely hanging on at age 36 last year.Here’s to hoping that the Dolphins do find a good coach who can oversee what promises to be both an eventful year and a forgettable 2019 regular season. If we do go 3-13, I’ll be doing cartwheels down the hallway of my building, and I don’t know if I’ve ever even done a cartwheel. Also, if someone could come out with a ‘Miami Miracle’ hoodie and T-shirt, perhaps we could come up with a similar product for the next season or two. We could have a slogan like, ‘Better Tanking For Two Years Than Stanking For Twenty’, etc. What do you think? Have a great week, everybody.