Could Willis be 'Justin Fields 2.0?'
Jay Croucher, Connor Rogers, and Matthew Berry wonder how Malik Willis will fare with the Miami Dolphins following his reported three-year, $67.5 million deal.
Video Transcript
Malik Willis to the Dolphins, three years, 67 and a half million, 45 of it is guaranteed.
So Malik Willis ends up with a lower annual average than someone like Sam Darnold, these mid-tier quarterback contracts, but bigger guarantees.
so, I mean, right out of the gate, this is familiarity for Malik Willis.
He obviously comes from Green Bay, where the Dolphins' new head coach and new general manager do.
But Ma- Matthew, I agree with you.
I'd be fascinated to know how in Arizona was on this.
Sometimes they have a reputation cash flow-wise of being a cheaper organization, because they have an immense amount of talent.
Now Malik Willis will have A-Chan and Waddle.
It's not like he's walking into nothing.
But this is a very interesting s- interesting scenario is that Dolphins have shed some money this off-season, and with the Tua cap hit could be kinda resetting.
They don't reset under center.
They bring in Malik Willis.
Yeah, this one was a weird one to me.
I Look, I As we talked about, I get it.
General manager and head coach both from Green Bay, where they're obviously very familiar with Malik Willis, and maybe that was also a factor in Malik Willis choosing to go to the Dolphins as well.
He certainly gets paid.
Look, we've talked about this before.
We know the fantasy upside of him.
Three starts for Green Bay over the last two years, averaging over 23 fantasy points per game.
The rushing is there.
I think the concern here is that this is a guy that has six career starts, and for as excited we are about, you know, full-time Malik Willis starting, he's got six career starts, and could this be Justin Fields 2.0?
Wow, look, you know, I raise my hand.
I was excited about Justin Fields fantasy-wise heading into the year, and that obviously did not work out when he had a full-time job, but he went to a dysfunctional organization with not a ton of talent around him.
And so are the Dolphins as bad as the Jets in that scenario?
No, but are they close?
Kinda.
I mean, you know, I mean, this is a team that's had a lot of turnover here.
And to your point, Devon Achane, Jaylen Waddle, and not much else.
You don't feel great about this offensive line, I don't, I don't think.
I also think from a fantasy perspective So I- I For Malik Willis, I think he's probably in the QB 12 to 16 range.
I think he's a mid-tier QB 2 that's got low-end QB 1 upside.
Quarterback's really deep.
I don't know if people sort of looked at rankings yet, or done any, like, best ball drafts, but, like, quarterback is super deep next year, so it's one of the reasons why.
But, given the small sample size and that there's a There's, you know, there's definitely a scenario where this goes south, right?
Given the, the lack of experience by Willis and the lack of talent, and it's a new offense coordinator, Bo- Bobby Slowik, who, you know, I, I don't know that you can take much, you know, from last year when he was with McDaniel.
Up and down, you know, seasons in Houston.
the one thing I will say here is that I actually think, guys, that this hurts Achane and Waddle a little bit, right?
That just because Malik Willis is The reason we love him in fantasy is he's willing to duck and run.
But that's not great for Waddle, and it's certainly not great for Devon Achane, who, you know, so much of his fantasy value came from the fact that he would get, you know, six, seven receptions a game.
And so if he, if, if Willis is not dumping off to Achane, like, they'll still run the ball, they'll still use him, I think, in the passing game, 'cause they just don't have much else.
But I'd say slight downtick in value from, for Achane, and I think Waddle's probably closer to a wide receiver three than wide receiver two again, given that, you know, they I expect the Dolphins at least with Willis to, you know, to be more run heavy than they have been in the past.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I think firstly, find it hilarious, we had a great NBA game last night, on Peacock, Thunder, Nuggets.
The two best players in the world going head-to-head, Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Jokic and SGA combined make about what Malik Willis and Tua Tagovailoa are gonna be paid by the Miami Dolphins this year.
It's, pretty crazy that the Dolphins are in this situation.
But I think the- That's hard to do in the N- with NBA salaries.
It is.
It is hard to do.
but I think that this is probably, for the Dolphins' purposes, if they weren't gonna go the Kyler Murray route, then this was the best available route.
The good thing with Malik Willis is that, unlike Tua, who is a pretty known commodity at this point, like, there is real immense upside with Malik Willis.
I mean, this year he had, a 92 PFF grade.
That's MVP level.
Now, he only played 97 snaps, but there is something here where there are worlds where Malik Willis could be a star.
He could be a star for the Dolphins.
He could be a league winner in fantasy.
So if you wanna shoot for the stars, he is the type of guy, that you go for.
Now, it's gonna be, just on average, it's probably going to be a weaker scheme than what he had with Matt LaFleur in Green Bay.
Yeah.
Bobby Slowik's stock probably goes up a little bit based on C.J.
Stroud's struggles after Slowik left.
But at the same time, you would expect that the LaFleur infrastructure is just gonna have been kinder to Willis than what he'll get this year.
But just the fact that he has Waddle and Achane, I think that gives a certain floor, to the offense.
Those guys are just so talented.
They bring so much speed.
This is a team that is going to be built around speed again.
Offensive line is a concern.
But yeah, Malik Willis now is one of the most compelling characters in the NFL going into the season, both real life and fantasy.
It's also gonna be interesting to see, obviously Helfley being a defensive mind, he usually will be able to set some kind of floor on defense.
But they have no players in their secondary right now.
They traded Minka Fitzpa- And the reason I say this is they traded Minka Fitzpatrick.
They're gonna have to draft a corner.
Probably need to draft two corners.
You know, their pass rush, we'll see.
They're okay in the middle of the field.
Is there a world where year one, as good as Helfley is, they're in these scripts where they are down 60% of their games by a You know, the, the Dolphins could be bad this year on defense.
But that's great for Malik Willis because he'd be an elite p- you know, pass script heavy kinda quarterback because he'll be able to scramble more.
The defenses won't be playing as tight.
I know we're getting f- super far down the road here, but, like, there's a road where the Dolphins aren't great, but Malik Willis, because of his skill set, also still holds some value.
But- Oh, for sure I do think, Matthew, we were really excited about him before free agency, and this at least cools things a little bit where I don't know if he'll be a top 10 quarterback in drafts.
I'd have felt Yeah, exactly.
I Like, could he get there?
Sure.
For sure.
The reason I have him ranked where I do, like, as a, you know, mid-tier QB 2 is because, again, there's a wider range of outcomes.
He could He easily has the skill set, again, to your point, because of both game script and the scrambling, and, you know, he does have some talent around him.
And, you know, free agency isn't done yet, and I, I still, I still keep the light on for Malik Washington to become a thing.
and so, you know, there's still, you know, potential opportunity for him to be a top five, top seven quarterback.
But there's also a scenario where, again, he's this year's Justin Fields and just the bottom falls out and, like, those three games were just sort of, like, you know, the games that he made appearances were, like, either down big or, like, just again, being in, in the Packers structure- Mm-hmm is different than being in the Dolphins structure.
So, it'll be really interesting to see sort of how it all plays out.
The, you know, but we're, you know, it's an interesting one.
It's a very interesting one, where we'll see how the Dolphins play-
