Fantasy Fallout: Odell Beckham is a Dolphin

Odell Beckham signed with the Dolphins on Friday morning, meaning he’ll pair up with Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle to form one of the biggest-name WR trios in the league. Beckham is 31 years old (32 in November) and not the player he once was, but he can still be a productive contributor to an NFL team, as evidenced by his solid yet unspectacular tenure with the Ravens in 2023. Let’s dig into the fantasy implications of Beckham’s signing.

ODELL BECKHAM

• Beckham notched a 14.9% target share with Baltimore last year despite playing only 48.6% of snaps on the season. His 0.23 targets per route run mark was actually quite strong, and he was efficient when targeted with 8.8 yards per target too. With that being said, the competition for targets is far better in Miami than it was in Baltimore, as OBJ goes from rookie Zay Flowers and banged-up Mark Andrews to one of the most concentrated aerial attacks in football with Hill and Waddle. Braxton Berrios and Cedrick Wilson often posted single-digit target shares even when they played the majority of snaps. While Beckham will earn targets more efficiently than they did, it seems unlikely he challenges Hill or Waddle at this stage of his career.
• Adam Levitan pointed out that Beckham has played 51 regular-season games since leaving the Giants in 2018. During that span, he has three 100-yard games, and he has two torn ACLs and a broken ankle in his career.

• Beckham’s path to fantasy viability likely requires a Hill or Waddle injury, but it’s unclear exactly how far the Dolphins would stretch his workload in that instance. Last year, Beckham had just one game above a 59% snap share, even though his competition for playing time was Rashod Bateman and Nelson Agholor. The Dolphins drafted two intriguing late-round WRs in Malik Washington and Tahj Washington, and they still have Berrios and River Cracraft on the roster. Beckham would be the favorite to see the biggest role expansion if Hill/Waddle miss time, but does he have the capacity to play 90% of snaps? Perhaps more importantly, do the Dolphins want to play him 90% of snaps every week given his injury history and their hopes of making a playoff run (and having him 100% healthy for said run)?

OTHER DOLPHINS PASS-CATCHERS

• We barely touched Tyreek and Waddle in our projections. While Beckham profiles as better target competition than Berrios, he’s still a big dog to play 17 games and is an inferior talent to both of these guys.
• We did dock Berrios, both Washingtons, Cracraft, and Erik Ezukanma fairly significantly (at least relative to their already-pretty-small target shares). It’s worth noting that Berrios, Malik, Tahj Washington fill a similar role in the slot; Beckham has mostly played outside in his career. From that perspective, Beckham could be primarily Hill/Waddle insurance, but one would think he wouldn’t sign somewhere where he’d be riding the bench. Because of that, we are projecting Beckham as the WR3 right now.
• Malik Washington in particular was a hot sleeper pick despite his puzzling draft-day fall, and the addition of Beckham is certainly a fairly major roadblock in his path to fantasy relevancy. However, it’s not a complete dagger given Beckham’s advanced age and injury history. There’s a world where Beckham can’t stay healthy or can’t be productive enough to fend off Washington. The rookie is still fine to consider in the final round of best ball drafts if you’re looking to get unique, but this is clearly a bad development.