{"id":189661,"date":"2024-09-13T14:15:59","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T18:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=189661"},"modified":"2024-09-13T14:30:53","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T18:30:53","slug":"jaylen-waddle-fantasy-football-outlook-after-tua-tagovailoa-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/09\/13\/jaylen-waddle-fantasy-football-outlook-after-tua-tagovailoa-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaylen Waddle Fantasy Football Outlook After Tua Tagovailoa Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/09\/13\/a-nightmare-in-miami-causes-concern-for-franchise-quarterback\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Tua Tagovailoa&#8217;s concussion<\/a> last night against Buffalo reminded a lot of us about the significance of head injuries and just how serious they are. Fantasy managers in all platforms are now scrambling because of uncertainty. With Tua&#8217;s health in doubt, what is Jaylen Waddle&#8217;s fantasy football outlook now?<\/p>\n<h2>Jaylen Waddle Fantasy Football Outlook After Tua Tagovailoa Injury<\/h2>\n<p>First and foremost, it&#8217;s hard to even discuss fantasy football when dealing with a serious injury like this. Tua&#8217;s health is the biggest priority. However, it&#8217;s part of human nature to include this in the reaction. That reaction was on display last night on social media.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Is Jaylen Waddle cooked without Tua Tagovailoa?<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; A&amp;J Fantasy Football Podcast\ud83c\udf99\ufe0f\ud83c\udfc8\ud83c\udfc6 (@AandJFFPod) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AandJFFPod\/status\/1834425617313415212?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 13, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Looking at stats, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/07\/25\/dolphins-tyreek-hill-jaylen-waddle-have-shot-at-historic-season-in-2024\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Waddle<\/a> hasn&#8217;t had the best numbers in the NFL without Tagovailoa as his quarterback. Prior to last night, he recorded 42 catches for 453 yards in eight games when Tagovailoa hasn&#8217;t taken the field. For context, that is an average of 5.25 catches and 56.6 yards per game.<\/p>\n<p>Those <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statmuse.com\/nfl\/ask\/jaylen-waddle-stats-without-tua\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">numbers<\/a> aren&#8217;t great, and it&#8217;s been noted in his fantasy performances without Tagovailoa. Rounding the numbers above to five catches for 57 yards, that&#8217;s an average of 10.7 fantasy points in PPR formats. Half PPR formats would see him average 8.2 points while standard leagues see him average 5.7 points per game.<\/p>\n<p>While those numbers aren&#8217;t good in any format, let&#8217;s dive in to how it affects fantasy managers in redraft and dynasty leagues.<\/p>\n<h3>Jaylen Waddle Fantasy Football Redraft Outlook<\/h3>\n<p>Redraft leagues have short-term worries about the situation. Miami has a Week 6 bye week, and it wouldn&#8217;t be surprising to see the Dolphins hold him out until at least Week 7. Fantasy managers now have to figure out what to do with Waddle until Tagovailoa possibly returns.<\/p>\n<p>In his career, Skylar Thompson hasn&#8217;t thrown for more than 166 yards in a single game. That&#8217;s concerning in the short term for Waddle owners who were relying on him to be a consistent WR2 as he&#8217;s so often been in his career.<\/p>\n<p>[tgdcta items=&#8221;1&#8243; id=&#8221;170468&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/08\/30\/why-the-miami-dolphins-scored-big-by-extending-star-coach-mike-mcdaniel\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Mike McDaniel<\/a> mentioned in a press conference that the team is rolling with Thompson as its starting quarterback, but they will sign someone. Ryan Tannehill is the best option on the market, but that doesn&#8217;t mean he&#8217;s going to be any better for Waddle. Tannehill was a game manager in Tennessee, and his WR2, Corey Davis, never once posted a 1,000-yard season.<\/p>\n<p>Until Tagovailoa comes back (presuming that he does play again), Waddle can&#8217;t be trusted in the starting lineup. When Waddle isn&#8217;t even posting 50 yards in half of his previous games without Tua, that&#8217;s a problem. You can&#8217;t justify playing Waddle with this amount of uncertainty at the quarterback position.<\/p>\n<h3>Jaylen Waddle Fantasy Football Dynasty Outlook<\/h3>\n<p>Those who own Waddle in dynasty leagues have the short-term issues to worry about just like the redraft, but there&#8217;s also the future to look at. What if Tua never plays football again? That&#8217;s a real possibility as he has to think about his future.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Here is the interview I did this morning on local Miami TV discussing Tua Tagovailoa\u2019s head injury and the tough decisions he has to make. @theinjuryexpertz <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/PAshEapjoh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/PAshEapjoh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jesse Morse, M.D. (@DrJesseMorse) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrJesseMorse\/status\/1834636829695365181?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 13, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Just like those in redraft leagues, Waddle is not playable in dynasty formats until Tagovailoa comes back. Where it gets complicated in dynasty leagues is looking into future seasons. Waddle&#8217;s whole value as a player is dependent upon good quarterback play. If Tua decides to continue playing football, Miami needs to have a contingency plan in place not named Skylar Thompson.<\/p>\n<p>Dynasty leagues have a slight advantage over redraft leagues in that the benches are usually deeper. There&#8217;s more options to choose from until you can start Waddle again. However, it doesn&#8217;t guarantee those options will be just as good. They won&#8217;t be in most cases which means you&#8217;ll have to adjust.<\/p>\n<p>If you haven&#8217;t already traded them, hold on to your first-round picks for 2025 and 2026. Even if Tagovailoa does continue to play, you may want to invest those in a rookie wide receiver and grab next&#8217;s year Xavier Worthy.<\/p>\n<p>And to answer the question from Twitter at the beginning of the article&#8230; yes, Jaylen Waddle is cooked without Tua Tagovailoa as a result of his injury.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Courtesy of\u00a0 Jasen Vinlove &#8211; Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tua Tagovailoa suffered his fourth concussion in less than three seasons against the Bills. Now, what does his injury mean for Jaylen Waddle?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5206,"featured_media":189672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[59,4],"tags":[294,6671,4443],"class_list":["post-189661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fantasy","category-dolphins","tag-fantasy-football","tag-jaylen-waddle","tag-tua-tagovailoa"],"modified_by":"Drew VonScio","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}