Dolphins Trending Up, Trending Down After Week 10

After the ninth game of the 2020 season, we take stock of which Miami Dolphins players are moving in the right direction and who's going the opposite way

It was another stellar all-around effort that got the Dolphins their fifth consecutive victory when they defeated the Los Angeles Chargers at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday.

With contributions from just about everywhere in the lineup, there's a lot more players trending up than down this week.

TRENDING UP

-- Salvon Ahmed: He followed his promising debut with another even better performance after making his first NFL start. It says here it won't be his last.

-- Jakeem Grant: Grant had maybe his most well-rounded game of the season with significant contributions as a receiver and on punt returns. He stepped up to the challenge in the absence of Preston Williams and no doubt earned himself a bigger role on offense with his performance.

-- Durham Smythe: It's easy to overlook Smythe because tight ends tend to attract attention only when they're catching passes, but his run blocking played a role in Ahmed's success. And, on top of that, he had an attention-grabbing touchdown catch.

-- Austin Jackson: In his second game back from IR, Jackson took a big step forward. He was probably the biggest reason we didn't hear Melvin Ingram's name Sunday.

-- Xavien Howard: This is a no-brainer. Like the rest of the secondary, he bounced back from a rough outing against Arizona with a stellar performance.

-- Byron Jones: See Howard, Xavien (though he didn't have a pick).

-- Eric Rowe: Hunter Henry is yet another really good tight end who Rowe made look very pedestrian.

-- Emmanuel Ogbah: Because of course.

-- Raekwon Davis: Seven tackles for an interior defensive lineman in a 3-4 scheme is a heck of a day's work. Sure, the Chargers had their moments running the ball, but they still averaged under 4 yards per attempt.

-- Malcolm Perry: He's slowly but surely becoming more and more of a factor on offense, and against the Chargers he showed off some nifty open-field running.

-- Zach Sieler: Two tackles for loss on Sunday, three more years on his contract on Monday. That's definitely trending up.

-- Nik Needham: He has gone from being a major question mark as a slot corner into a really solid player. He had just a great game against the Chargers.

TRENDING DOWN

-- DeVante Parker: It's not like Parker had any drops against the Chargers, but he's also not creating a ton of separation and every pass coming his way is contested. As a result, he had two catches on seven targets Sunday. That's not good.

-- Mike Gesicki: Two catches on five targets for Gesicki, who's having the same issues as Parker. Watch the number of times Gesicki is closely guarded when the ball is coming his way.

-- Robert Hunt: Hunt technically started at right tackle, but that was because the Dolphins' first offensive play was the first-and-goal from the 1 after the punt block and they were using their jumbo formation with seven offensive linemen. Hunt would get only one other snap in the game, again in a goal-line situation, so while he didn't do anything right, he was replaced in the lineup as the Dolphins went back to their opening-day offensive line of Austin Jackson, Ereck Flowers, Ted Karras, Solomon Kindley and Jesse Davis.

-- Ted Karras: First off, props for Karras for speaking to the media after his two errant snaps (because some players would have declined) and props also for taking full responsibility. That said, Karras would be the first to tell you this can't happen again.