The Dolphins don't care about your fantasy team. They want to win.

MIAMI — If you built your fantasy football team around the Miami Dolphins, odds are you’re not that happy.

It wasn’t a necessarily a bad idea. The 2023 Dolphins offense put up record-setting numbers. Tyreek Hill was on pace for 2,000 yards at one point. Raheem Mostert scored a league-high 21 touchdowns. De’Von Achane ran for more than 200 yards in just his second NFL game. The list goes on and on.

Here’s the thing about fantasy though: it’s just a game, albeit one with some very passionate fans. So as the 2024 Dolphins regressed to the mean, the stars have certainly heard it from fans. They, however, have bigger aspirations — and beating the New England Patriots is the next step.

“I can’t even enjoy a day out with my wife and my kids,” Tyreek Hill said. “Somebody is always walking up to me and is like, ‘I drafted you No. 1 and you’ve having the worst fantasy season of your career.’ And it’s like, ‘Bro, I do not literally care.’ I’m with my family.”

Added Hill: “It’s like bro, the only thing I care about is the Miami Dolphins winning games and me and [Jaylen Waddle], we obviously understand that. If that means we’ve got to block a thousand times to get teams out of Cover 2 or Cover 4 or whatever the case may be, we’ll do that. We’ll come down and crack some safeties or pin some d-ends, whatever we’ve got to do. So all for the team.”

Hill, however, isn’t the only player who has faced ridicule from fans.

“I’ve been dealing with that since I got in the league,” tight end Jonnu Smith said Thursday. Luckily, he hasn’t dealt with it via social media where “you’ve got people going crazy. I’ve seen some wild stuff, not me, but fans going at players because you couldn’t get me five points, or whatever it may be.”

Despite fan’s projections, the Dolphins offense looks nothing like it did in 2023. It’s far more methodical. It relies less on the big play. And it’s more focused on long, sustaining drives.

“When you have some offensive production, or sustained offensive production, specifically with last year, I think we were No. 1 in yards from Week 1 to the last week of the season, you’re going to get offseason attention and people are going to have a different plan for you because opponents get paid, too,” coach Mike McDaniel said. “I’m very proud and very proud of our offensive unit when they’re able to sustain those drives. I think we had as many 14-plus play scoring drives last game as we did the entire year previous.”

The result is that the production of many players, most notably Hill and Waddle, has dropped significantly. Hill is on pace for his worst statistical year since 2019, a season in which he only played 12 games. Meanwhile, Waddle is in danger of not eclipsing 1,000 receiving yards for the first time in his career.

Hill, in particular, was by far the most coveted Dolphin from a fantasy perspective, going in the first round in nearly all leagues. And while both Hill and Jaylen Waddle started the season with a vintage 100-yard games, it went downhill once Tua Tagovailoa suffered a concussion in Week 2 and missed the next four games.

The Dolphins leaned heavy on the run and Achane during Tagovailoa’s absence. That, of course, led to a significant drop-off in both receivers’ production. Tagovailoa’s return in Week 8 was supposed to coincide with the gaudy, 2023 offensive numbers yet that has certainly not been the case as teams have opted for a two-high safety look to limit the big plays that receiving core has been used to.

“It’s variations of two-high coverages with what guys want to do into the boundary or if [Hill] is into the boundary, what they want to do to [Hill] versus what they do to Waddle,” Tagovailoa said. “And then back side looks, some teams play two-man while they’re playing zone on the front. So it’s just different ways they try to get to their two-high against us.”

The bottom line: the Dolphins offense has been forced to adapt to something unprecedented.

“You have to adjust to what is being presented to you and people have different plans of actions,” coach Mike McDaniel said. “Once people put two-high conservative and/or two-man coverages against your offense, until you’re able to take advantage of that through the quarterback extending plays or throwing shorter to space and staying efficient and maximizing those gains with YAC, until you prove that you’re able to execute and have games like that where you don’t punt the ball, you’re going to get that type of defense.”

Therein lies the antidote: the Dolphins will continuously face these two-high safety looks until proven otherwise. While that doesn’t bode well for fantasy managers, the Dolphins is a real team. With real players. And real coaches.

So next time you see them in public, be happy with a picture, autograph or even a head nod. Because the Dolphins don’t care about your fantasy team.