Dolphins at Jets stock watch: Jason Sanders, Isaiah Ford, Patrick Laird all have breakout days

The Miami Dolphins lost to the New York Jets on Sunday, dropping the team to 3-10 on the season and splitting the season series with their AFC East division rivals. While last week’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles was a really fun game to watch, this week’s game was less than stellar. Both teams seem stagnant, fighting to just find any sort of rhythm.

After each game for Miami, we take a look at the players who saw their stock rise and the players who slipped some with their performances. This week, we have a player who set a franchise record and two players who stepped up when more was asked of them.

Stock up: Jason Sanders, kicker - Two weeks in a row for Sanders to land on our stock up listing. Last week, it was for his touchdown reception on the Mountaineer Shot play. This week, it is for a seven field-goal performance. If a snap and hold had been better on one more field goal, Sanders would have tied the NFL record with eight field goals in a game. His 7-for-8 performance still set a new franchise record and made him just the eighth player in league history to kick at least seven field goals in a game. All 21 Miami points on Sunday came off Sanders’ foot.

Stock down: Redzone offense - Miami had been lighting it up in the redzone this year, coming into the game with a 67 percent touchdown rate, good enough for fourth in the league. On Sunday, they could not buy their way into the endzone. Some of it was execution. Some of it was play calling. Some of it was just a stagnant offense that could not find a rhythm at any point in the game. Whatever the case, and whomever you want to blame as the biggest factor, Miami’s redzone offense was off on Sunday.

Stock up: Isaiah Ford, wide receiver - DeVante Parker and Albert Wilson each sustained a concussion on Sunday, forcing them from the game. Suddenly, Miami’s receiving corps was down to Allen Hurns, Isaiah Ford, and Mack Hollins. Someone had to step up, and it was Ford in a big way. Ford came into the game with two receptions on six targets with nine yards this season, with one additional target in 2018. On Sunday, the ball was thrown his direction nine times, catching six passes for 92 yards. He came up big when the Dolphins needed someone.

Stock down: Ryan Fitzpatrick, quarterback - Maybe this is being a little nit-picky, especially since Fitzpatrick still threw for 245 yards and rushed for a team-high 65 yards, but he had an issue with ball security against the Jets. He fumbled twice, though he recovered once and Patrick Laird recovered the other. The quarterback cannot be making mistakes like that, even if he has a reputation as being a risk-taker, so that will pull his stock down a little this week.

Stock up: Patrick Laird, running back - This season, Laird has rushed 31 times, with 15 of those coming on Sunday. He had 36 yards of rushing before picking up 48 yards against the Jets. He also caught four of five passes thrown toward him, adding 38 yards through the air. His 16-yard rush was just the second time this season a running back has picked up more than 15 yards on a single rush. It was not a great day, with just a 3.2 yards per carry average, but it was a much better performance than Miami had been getting on the ground and it showed Laird can be an effective player for the Dolphins offense moving forward.

Stock down: Taco Charlton, defensive end - Charlton was not listed on the injury report for Miami, yet he landed on the inactive list for Sunday. There has not been any reason reported for Charlton being a healthy scratch - and maybe he was ill Sunday morning and he was not healthy - but something happened that made Miami’s leading pass rusher this year someone who could watch the game instead of play.