Dolphins Will Finally Beat Bills

Bills vs. Dolphins, 8:15 ET

Bills vs. Dolphins, 8:15 ET

Can you believe we are already on Week 2 of the new NFL season? The first week already seems like a blur and something that I expect half of the teams are looking to forget. Week 1 gave us some very good games, some interesting new storylines, and even some drama off of the field. Tonight, on Thursday Night Football, the Bills take on the Dolphins in an early season matchup between two teams that have their eyes set on big things this season. How should we play this one? 

The Bills escaped with a win in their first game of the season, but they are probably one of the teams that is looking to forget the first week of the season. Buffalo came into that game, at home, against a Cardinals team that isn’t expected to be very good, and the Bills struggled to win the game. Once again the team was led by Josh Allen doing a bit of everything. This has become a tired story of them over-relying on their quarterback. Allen finished the game 18-for-23 with 232 yards passing and two touchdowns. He also added another two touchdowns on the ground and 39 rushing yards. While Allen doesn’t have Stefon Diggs anymore, he did get nine different receivers involved in the game. They don’t have a top wide receiver, but if the team is willing to take the middle options instead of the deep ball or a pure, go-to talent, they can probably make this work against most teams. The bigger concern I have is that the defense doesn’t look great. The Cardinals put up 28 points and had very little resistance. Kyler Murray didn’t have a good game, going 21-for-31 with 162 yards and a touchdown. James Conner rushed for 50 yards and a touchdown. The Bills had four sacks in that game, but outside of that I really wasn’t impressed with much of what they did. In this one the defense will have an even tougher time and Allen will have to be just as good in order to escape with a win.

Josh Allen is the most overrated quarterback in the NFL, according to over 100 players who were polled around the league. (Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports)

Week 1 for the Dolphins focused on mostly off-field stuff. Tyreek Hill was pulled over on the way to the game for, well, rumors are a bit inconclusive. I’ve heard he was driving 100 in a 40 among other things, but that seems rather unlikely. If you’ve seen the video, it was disturbing to say the least. Could Hill have handled it better, of course, but if the expectation is that he needs to handle it better, that same expectation needs to be placed on the officers in the situation. I try to focus only on sports betting within this platform, so I’ll do that here. I just sincerely hope that everyone, cops, athletes, and citizens, can treat each other with respect and fairness. Life is tough enough without having to deal with extra crap. Hill returned to the field the same day and was able to perform admirably. He caught seven passes for 130 yards and a touchdown. Tua Tagovailoa wasn’t overly efficient, going just 23-for-37, but he racked up 338 yards and threw the one touchdown. While Hill got most of the targets and yards, Jaylen Waddle was able to haul in all five of his targets for 109 yards. There was very little running game to speak of for the Dolphins despite De’Von Achane finding the endzone. The Dolphins know their strength is through the passing game and I think the Bills can be exploited. They still have issues on defense, and will likely struggle to contain Allen and the high-powered Bills team. Last season they lost both games to the Bills and allowed a total of 69 points in the two games to Allen and the Bills.

The over would seem like a logical choice here. Two bad or average defenses and two great offenses. The question in this one remains if the Dolphins can come over the hump. I think they can. I’m higher on the Dolphins this year than I am on the Bills and I think the teams are likely to split the season series between the two of them with the Dolphins taking this one. I’m going to back Miami on the moneyline here unless it gets over -135, in that case, I’ll take them to cover the spread at -2.5 or lower. 

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