When playing short slates in the DFS market, a player or two continuously crawls out of the woodwork to finish on the winning roster. On Sunday, each matchup is a run-back of a game played in December. Miami lost to the Bills (32-29) in Week 15, Minnesota held on over the Giants (27-24) at home in Week 16, and last week the Bengals beat Baltimore (27-15) in Cincinnati. In the NFL, no two games are the same, so what happened in the previous matchup mostly won’t happen again.
MORE: NFL DFS Wild-Card Saturday Slate
Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills
Based on the midweek reports, the Dolphins will play this game with their third-string quarterback (Skylar Thompson) behind center with Tua Tagovailoa ruled out Teddy Bridgewater dealing with a dislocated pinky. The downgrade puts Miami in a challenging position to move the ball and win the game. Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle are rated as top-five wideouts on Sunday based on their salaries, but they almost look only playable if someone is looking to go against the grain. Hill had nine catches for 69 yards and one score vs. the Bills on the road. To be in play, he needs more than 100 yards receiving, along with similar catches and a touchdown to fill his salary bucket. Waddle comes into the game with a slight ankle issue. He beat Buffalo for a long touchdown, leading to a solid day (3/114/1).
With Raheem Mostert expected to miss this week’s game, Jeff Wilson will get the bulk of touches for the Dolphins. The Bills didn’t allow a touchdown to a tight end all season. Miami barely used their tight ends this year (49/496/6 on 75 targets), except for Week 18 (9/90 on 11 targets). So, seeing a Dolphins’ tight end touchdown in the game wouldn't surprise me.
Buffalo relied on Dawson Knox (6/98/1) and Josh Allen (381 combined yards with four scores) to beat Miami in Week 15. Stefon Diggs has a reasonable price point and an excellent chance to be on the winning roster based on his expected output (7/89/1) and 2022 body of work (108/1,429/11). There hasn’t been a Gabe Davis sighting since Week 10 (6/93/1), but the best game of his career came last season in the postseason (8/201/4). Miami has risk defending tight ends (99/954/9), giving Knox a chance to extend his scoring streak to five games. Last week, Buffalo gave James Cook the most running back snaps for the first time all year. This change could be a hint of a breakthrough game.
Many teams will start with Allen, Diggs, and either Davis or Knox. The progressive Bills’ stack may end up being Allen/Cook/Buffalo defense. If Bridgewater can start, this game has a better chance of high scoring. Isaiah McKenzie has a hamstring issue, possibly giving Khalil Shakir a bump in playing time.
