PERSONNEL NEWS

Strategy And Personnel

The Sports Xchange

November 29, 2018 at 2:10 am.

PLAYER NOTES

–WR Jakeem Grant was placed on injured reserve. Grant, 26, was having a career year in his third NFL season. The former sixth-round pick out of Texas Tech scored four touchdowns this season – two as a receiver, one as a punt returner and one as a kickoff returner.

–WR Danny Amendola (knee) is questionable to play on Sunday. Amendola, 33, leads the Dolphins with 48 catches and 469 yards. But he has scored just once and is averaging only 9.8 yards per reception.

–RB Kenyan Drake plans to play Sunday despite a sore shoulder that he landed on last week. He is second on the team with 409 rushing yards and second with 38 receptions.

–WR DeVante Parker (shoulder) is expected to play on Sunday. The injury-plagued former first-round pick is having potentially his worst season as a pro with 17 catches for 235 yards and no touchdowns in six games.

–TE A.J. Derby (foot, knee) missed last week’s game and is questionable for Sunday. Derby, a sixth-round pick by the Patriots in 2015, has played four games this season, none as a starter.

–G Ted Larsen (neck) was limited in practice on Wednesday but is expected to play on Sunday. Larsen, 31, has managed to play 10 games, including eight as a starter.

–RT Ja’Wuan James (knee) was limited in practice on Wednesday but is expected to play on Sunday. James, 26, has started 10 games this season, which is his fifth year in the league.

PLAYER SPOTLIGHT: QB Ryan Tannehill started this season with three straight wins but has now lost three in a row. He also missed five straight games due to a shoulder injury, and that kept him between his second and third losses. So, yes, as usual, it’s complicated when it comes to Tannehill, who was converted from wide receiver to quarterback at Texas A&M and then got drafted eighth overall by Miami in 2012. Tannehill is now 30 years old, and it’s getting late for him, at least in terms of his Dolphins tenure. He has five games left this season to try to turn things around.

GAME PLAN: This will be the first of two matchups between the Dolphins and Bills – both in a span of just five weeks. Last season, the Dolphins and Bills played twice in the final three weeks of the year, and Buffalo earned a sweep. However, most of the key offensive players in that game are no longer with their respective teams, including Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor, Dolphins quarterback Jay Cutler and Dolphins receiver Jarvis Landry, among others. With so much new personnel, Miami’s main goal should be to make Bills rookie quarterback Josh Allen uncomfortable. Allen and the Bills beat the Jaguars 24-21 last week, as Allen passed for 160 yards and rushed for 99 with zero turnovers.
MATCHUPS TO WATCH

–Dolphins OLB Kiko Alonso vs. Bills RB LeSean McCoy. This is a classic matchup between two players who were traded for each other after the 2014 season. Both have had excellent careers. Alonso, 28, is just five stops away from his third consecutive 100-tackle season. He has three interceptions and three forced fumbles. Those six forced turnovers are a career high for Alonso. Meanwhile, McCoy, a six-time Pro Bowl player with more than 10,000 career rushing yards, is having the worst season of his career. Since McCoy became an NFL starter in 2010, he has rushed for at least 840 yards every year. This season, though, he has work to do because he has just 426 yards, two touchdowns and a 3.3 average. He totaled 19 TDs the past two years, and his career rushing average is 4.5. McCoy did rush for 113 yards two games ago, so Alonso will want to make sure that does not happen this week.

–Dolphins CB Xavien Howard vs. Bills WR Robert Foster. Howard, a third-year pro and a second-year starter continues to emerge as a shutdown corner. He had four interceptions last season and five this year, including two this past week against Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts. Foster, a 24-year-old undrafted rookie from the University of Alabama, was the nation’s No. 2 receiver coming out of high school in Pennsylvania. But after catching just 35 passes in his college career, Foster represents a possible find for the Bills. He had 94 yards this past Sunday, making him Buffalo’s leading receiver for the second straight week. Overall this season, Foster has seven catches for a whopping 229 yards and a 32.7 average. He played 33 snaps this past Sunday – 10 more than former No. 1 receiver Kelvin Benjamin.