Fantasy football impact: Were the Dolphins successful in overhauling their O-line?

I spend a while in prep for each of these team previews clicking around in stats, looking for an interesting hook. Sometimes it’s overall team fantasy performance, sometimes it’s overall team real-football performance, sometimes it’s just an individual player’s questions.

It’s not that the Dolphins were or are bad. They finished with a .500 record in 2013 and came into Week 17 with a shot at the playoffs. Fantasy-wise, they were at least competitive a year ago with two top-30 receivers, a top-10 tight end, a top-16 quarterback. But overall, there was just nothing to the team for fantasy.

The Miami offensive line was legendarily bad in 2013, and it led to a host of forgettable fantasy performances.

Pouncey, the lone holdover from last year’s rough line, was to be the starting center until a torn labrum forced him to go through surgery in June. He could miss a huge chunk of the season.

And then Moreno got hurt.

The oft-injured Moreno had arthroscopic knee surgery back in June and was just activated off the physically unable to perform list Wednesday; it sounds like he’ll be good to go by the start of the season, but there’s no guarantee there.

So are the Dolphins back where they started from? Can the newcomers to the offensive line make up for Pouncey’s loss and protect Tannehill and the running backs? Or will the struggles continue, and will Miami’s fantasy players continue to be sort of forgettable?

I’ll have to give a mea culpa to the Dolphins, because I dogged the drafting of Ryan Tannehill two years ago. He’s not a top-of-the-NFL talent, but he’s easily exceeded my expectations.

Despite all the sacks he took a year ago, Tannehill still managed to finish 16^th among quarterbacks in fantasy scoring, putting up just over 14 fantasy points a game. Even better for fantasy owners, Tannehill went most of the season without any disaster games. Before Week 16, Tannehill had only one game in the single digits in fantasy scoring, a Week 4 nine-point outing. He peaked at 24 fantasy points in a game, but a quarterback reliably scoring in the teens week to week was a hugely valuable quarterback in a two-quarterback league, even if his lack of significant upside meant he wasn’t a great choice as a QB1.

Which might make my rank of Tannehill among quarterbacks (No. 23) confusing. I just said he’ll perform about as well as he did when he was the No. 16 quarterback; why don’t I rank him there?

Knowshon Moreno had 1,160 yards from scrimmage and nine touchdowns as a rookie in 2009. It was a good start to a career that subsequently went off the rails because of injury and ineffectiveness. He missed 20 games in 2010-2012 and only scored 13 touchdowns in those three seasons.

And that’s all before we consider his injury. Moreno has battled knee problems throughout his career and his knee landed him on the IR for the last chunk of 2011. Much of his fate for 2014 will come down to how that knee gets back to strength.

For two guys who were drafted far apart a year ago -- Miller went in the early 20s among running backs, Thomas in the mid 60s -- Miller and Thomas’ final fantasy totals were very similar. Miller put up 85 points and finished 39^th at the position while Thomas had 74 points for 45^th. They got there in very different ways, as Miller had 879 total yards compared to only 469 for Thomas, while Miller’s two touchdowns were dwarfed by Thomas’ six.

Outside of the touchdowns, though, it’s clear that Miller is the superior running back. He’s smaller and quicker, with a 4.2 yards-per-carry average over his two seasons when the bigger Thomas has a 3.6 average in three years.

If Moreno misses time at the start of the season -- and frankly, the way things are going, even if he doesn’t -- Miller will be the primary beneficiary. There is already talk of him starting over Moreno no matter the latter’s health status.

I ranked Moreno as my No. 28 running back. The longer the injury questions remain, the more I’ll have to drop him as he’s probably more suited to the mid-30s now. Miller, who I ranked No. 48, is climbing similarly. Frankly, they might be best back-to-back in the mid-30s, and you just pick whichever one you like and trust.

Thomas, now that there’s another mouth to feed, probably won’t be fantasy relevant. He could snake some touchdowns and/or get some injury fill-in time, but it’s hard to envision a scenario in which a fantasy owner would want to use him.

Brian Hartline had three more receptions than Mike Wallace. Wallace had eight more targets. Hartline had 86 more yards. Wallace had one more touchdown.

They weren’t the same guy last year, but man, they were close. They both finished with 117 fantasy points on the season, both tied for 26^th among wide receivers. They got there in slightly different ways -- Wallace had more big games, but more clunkers -- but in the end, you could have just drafted “MIAMI WIDE RECEIVER” like it was some unlicensed video game, and you wouldn’t have known the difference.

And that’s all well and good. If time started at the beginning of 2013, we’d be ranking these receivers pretty close to the same. It didn’t, of course, and a look over their respective histories reveals that Wallace has 37 career touchdowns and almost 5,000 yards, while Hartline has 10 and less than 3,800. Even in the last two years, when Hartline has topped 1,000 yards in each and Wallace has fallen short, the former has only five touchdowns compared to the latter’s 13.

And then there’s this: The Dolphins signed Wallace and Hartline to five-year deals last year, five days apart from one another. Hartline’s contract was for $30.775 million. Wallace’s? $60 million. No, you can’t judge two players by their contracts alone, and yes, teams make evaluation mistakes. But there’s not much reason to think Hartline and Wallace will be equals in 2014 as they were in 2013.

And then there’s Brandon Gibson. Gibson was off to a decent start a year ago in seven games with 326 yards and three scores when he tore a patellar tendon, ending his season. By all accounts, he’s healthy now, and the early reports out of training camp are that he’s fully recaptured his role as the team’s No. 3 receiver.

I have Wallace as my No. 35 receiver, Hartline at No. 48. Gibson, right now, is a just-watch-him player, though he’s one I wouldn’t mind taking a flyer on late in a deep league.

2013 was Clay’s first season, and he was wholly unremarkable in the first two. But as the team’s primary tight end, he had five double-digit fantasy games, peaking with a 97-yard, two-score, 21-fantasy-point performance in Week 14 against Pittsburgh. He finished seventh among tight ends in fantasy scoring.