Updated Fantasy Football Outlooks for Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, Darren Waller: Post-Jonnu Smith Trade (2025)

John's updated fantasy football outlooks for Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, and Darren Waller after the Jonnu Smith Trade. His 2025 analysis on Hill, Waddle, and Waller.

The Miami Dolphins have made a few big moves at pass-catcher this offseason. No, they haven't traded away their top receivers or top pass-catching running back, but they've shuffled a few things around, and thus, they deserve a new look from a fantasy football perspective.

For the most part, the moves don't have a huge effect on the players there. A team's top receivers, especially those on huge contracts, tend to remain the team's top receivers the next season if they're retained. In the case of running back De'Von Achane, his pass-catching role likely isn't going anywhere.

Achane's still on his rookie contract, so they likely intend to use him very heavily. Though we won't explicitly cover him here, he's the player whose role I expect to change the least. With that, let's dive into fantasy football outlooks for Miami's other top receivers!

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Tyreek Hill Fantasy Football Outlook

Hill is now 31 years old, and his tape from last season was far from impressive. There are a few glaring issues with his game that I have. For one, the elite acceleration that has helped him become one of the league's most productive receivers throughout his career appears to have faded a bit, at least on tape.

In the NFL, the level of competition means that any loss in athleticism can potentially have a huge impact on a player. Hill is especially vulnerable to this. He's always won with elite, best-in-league explosiveness off the line of scrimmage and down the field. That wasn't the case much last season.

Tyreek Hill on vertically breaking routes

2023:
- 46.9% of route tree (4th-most)
- .233 Average Separation (3rd-best)
- 5.30 YPRR (best by a mile)
- 34% TPRR (best)

2024:
- 51.8% of route tree (2nd-most)
- .069 Average Separation (33rd)
- 1.64 YPRR (50th)
- 17% TPRR (33rd) pic.twitter.com/1peSLD7xF5

— Fantasy Points Data (@FantasyPtsData) May 29, 2025

Hill struggled with a wrist injury, but that's no excuse for a lack of separation skills. You don't run with your wrists. Hill put a few concerning reps on tape as well, which were hard to excuse. You could say they showed a lack of effort, I suppose, but it's always important to consider age-related athleticism declines.

I think this is my favorite play from Sunday: Zaven Collins winning a foot race from the line of scrimmage against Tyreek Hill.

DC Nick Rallis: “I was wondering if he hit some high speed there.” pic.twitter.com/1HCyShIuAG

— Theo Mackie (@theo_mackie) October 30, 2024

Hill isn't a great route-runner and is pretty poor at making contested catches. He doesn't have great size, so catching jump balls over athletic defenders isn't a talent of his. At his price in fantasy drafts, I'd rather look elsewhere.

There's a chance Miami's offense puts it together this season. But in my mind, head coach Mike McDaniel's gimmicky schemes just aren't working as well anymore. Defenses have adjusted, and the moment Tagovailoa gets hurt, Hill becomes dead weight on fantasy rosters, like we saw last season.

Jaylen Waddle Fantasy Football Outlook

Waddle's 2022 season seems like a distant relic of the past now. I don't think that's the season we should expect from him at any point moving forward, either. Waddle racked up a huge amount of yards after the catch that season. We've seen that the average falls back to earth since.

Jaylen Waddle (YAC/R) and total YAC by season

-2021: 4.2 YAC/R, 439 YAC
-2022: 6.9 YAC/R, 514 YAC
-2023: 5.8 YAC/R, 421 YAC
-2024: 4.1 YAC/R, 236 YAC

All this despite Tua Tagovailoa having a record-low average depth of target.

Jonnu Smith had 5.8 YAC/R and 510 YAC in 2024. pic.twitter.com/EaURfy4P3o

— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) July 15, 2025

Waddle was handily outperformed by tight end Jonnu Smith in picking up yards after the catch, despite Waddle being viewed as one of the league's premier extra-yardage-picker-upper threats after his sophomore season. It's concerning to me.

I don't think Waddle is a wizard after the catch. I believe that 2022 featured a few busted coverages in which Waddle was able to rip off long touchdowns. Those simply weren't available the next season. But the massive dip from 2023 to 2024 is even more concerning.

I think that was because of Smith's presence there, though. Smith was better at picking up extra yards on short passes, so a lot of the gimmicky screens and such went to Smith over Waddle. Now that Smith is gone, Waddle stands to benefit the most from his absence... maybe.

Throw De’Von Achane the football and good things happen pic.twitter.com/Q8jKLIH3eI

— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) July 12, 2025

It was Achane who was an absolute wizard after the catch. Getting the ball to him and letting him hunt for extra yards simply worked a LOT better than it ever did for Waddle, on film at least. Of course, the pure numbers for Waddle in 2022 were very good, but as I stated, I think they were fluky.

Flukes do happen in the big leagues, too. Achane might be the player to benefit the most, though his passing game work was pretty saturated as a running back already. Perhaps defenses start keying in on him more. The problem with that is that Waddle and Hill are still speedsters.

I imagine they're more concerned with keeping the deep passing game in check. That's what fueled most of the Dolphins' passing game success in 2022 and 2023. It's better to give up a few first downs than a touchdown on any given drive.

I can't help but avoid drafting Tyreek Hill in the 2nd round in fantasy, which I've seen in a lot of mocks. Tua Tagovailoa's avg time to throw didn't change much, but his ADOT was WAY down. I think this is a personnel thing. Tyreek is 31 and Jonnu Smith and De'Von Achane exist. pic.twitter.com/fFb9SCRecD

— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) May 24, 2025

With the extremely poor state of Miami's offensive line, especially after the retirement of elite left tackle Terron Armstead and the departure of right tackle Kendall Lamm, even the "reinforcements, Miami brought in might not matter much. So I'm still avoiding Waddle at his ADP right now in fantasy drafts.

I don't think he'll have a season much better than his last one in terms of efficiency and fantasy points per game.

Darren Waller Fantasy Football Outlook

I guess he takes on the Jonnu Smith role? I don't know what this offense plans to do in 2025. It's been tough for me to decipher, but it wouldn't surprise me if it wants to do something far different than it actually does. The major issue here is that the Dolphins' offense wasn't particularly effective last season.

Smith was always an underrated TE. A 31-year-old Darren Waller is not. I have a hard time believing he matches Smith's production from last season. I imagine, in fact, that he could be almost a non-factor in fantasy football. This offense looks like it's about to collapse even harder, anyway.

My Sleeper chat after waivers cleared for Darren Waller: pic.twitter.com/aEBtrT8NPn

— Jagger May (@JagSays) July 3, 2025

He'll be 33 years old shortly after the start of the 2025 season and hasn't been relevant since 2020. That season was an aberration, impressive as it was, and Waller fell off quite quickly after that. He has a concerning injury history as well. Players who take time away from football at his age rarely do well in their returns.

Miami's offense isn't set to improve much, if at all. In fact, it could easily worsen without Smith in the mix. Both Hill and Waddle struggled last season, and Tagovailoa's injury proneness isn't great. In very deep leagues, Waller could have some utility, but his value is inflated by the name recognition.

Woah 😮: Former Raiders Tight End Darren Waller is coming out of retirement to play for the Miami Dolphins

(Michael Mayer was never leaving) pic.twitter.com/dkRguA7gHI

— ShifftttyyyQB1🏴‍☠️ (@raiders1022) July 1, 2025

One consistency in fantasy football rhetoric is that quarterbacks who aren't considered great often don't receive enough credit for the one-hit-wonder seasons of some of their players. A perfect example is quarterback Matt Ryan, who helped rookie tight end Kyle Pitts have a great season in his first year with the Atlanta Falcons.

Waller's production was a byproduct of quarterback Derek Carr's effectiveness with the Raiders. Carr had a few terrific years there, and Waller was the beneficiary of his 2019 and 2020 exploits. Waller has since retired, then unretired, and is too old, and too far down the priority list in the passing game to come close to his old numbers.

There are three players clearly above him in the pecking order as pass-catchers -- Hill, Waddle, and Achane. That's unlikely to change, because all are younger and more athletic than Waller is.

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