Miami got its doors blown off in Thursday's joint practice with the Giants, giving up at least 6 sacks and getting pushed around up front for long stretches. Jeff Hafley couldn't care less. The Dolphins coach flat out said he isn't trying to outscheme another staff in a preseason walkthrough, he's trying to figure out who his roster actually is before the games start counting.
That's a fine philosophy when your team is 2-15 the year before and rebuilding trust with a fan base that's seen enough vanilla preseason wins to know they mean nothing. Hafley wants one-on-one battles, not a scripted script that flatters the coordinators. It's the kind of quote that sounds like coach-speak until you remember Miami's offensive line getting shredded is exactly the kind of thing that should worry anyone drafting Dolphins skill players this month.
The one moment that actually matters for fantasy purposes: De'Von Achane broke a long run behind lead blocks from fullback DJ Herman and tight end Will Kacmarek. That's not nothing. Miami using extra blockers to spring Achane in August suggests the scheme intends to keep leaning on gap-scheme concepts and misdirection to get him in space, the exact formula that made him a fantasy monster last year even while everything else around him was broken.
And everything else really was broken. Achane put up 1,838 yards from scrimmage and 12 touchdowns on 305 touches in 2025 for an offense that ranked in the bottom eight of the league in both yardage and scoring. He was the only running back to score double-digit fantasy points in every single game. That workhorse role, on a bad offense, is basically the best-case scenario for a running back's target share and touch count, because bad offenses that trail a lot still feed their best skill player just to stay afloat.
So why is Achane's current ADP sitting at RB7 in standard formats, around pick 9 overall, instead of locked into the first 5 picks? The market is pricing in real questions about Miami's passing game and whether a new quarterback situation changes how often Achane sees the ball through the air, which was a huge chunk of his 2025 fantasy value. If Miami's pass-catching usage for him dips even a little, the whole profile shifts from top-5 lock to high-variance RB1.
For redraft managers, that gap between his talent and his current cost is the buy signal. If he's falling to pick 9 or 10 in your draft, that's a discount on a player who was RB5 last season on a broken offense, with the added upside of a full offseason to build chemistry with whoever's throwing him the ball. Dynasty rankers already get it, slotting him as their RB4 with essentially zero long-term concerns, because talent and offensive scheme rarely both disappear at once.
Everything else out of Miami's camp this week is noise until the pads come off for real. Jordyn Brooks sitting out and Tyrel Dodson leaving practice for an undisclosed reason opened the door for second-round linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, who picked off Jaxson Dart, but none of that touches the fantasy-relevant stuff. Watch how Achane is used Saturday night against the Giants at Hard Rock Stadium: touches, targets, and whether he's still getting that fullback-led blocking on early downs. If Miami keeps building around him the way it did Thursday, that ADP discount won't last through Labor Day.