Thursday Night Football - Miami Dolphins @ New England Patriots

Miami Dolphins @ New England Patriots

 

My Prices – Dolphins 4.10 Patriots 1.32

Vegas Line – Patriots -8

Tom Brady’s deflate-gate revenge tour has hit the ground running and he has been awesome over the course of the first six games carrying the team to a 6-0 start and playing some of the best football in his career.

As for the Dolphins, they are on a two-game winning streak in which they beat up a couple of poor AFC South teams by a combined 46 points. However this is a completely different test and the Dolphins will have their work cut out against the Patriots; historically they have struggled against them on the road losing their last six games at Gillette Stadium.

The Patriots offensive line has been poor lately surrendering too many sacks and things aren't likelier to get much easier here with Ndamukong Suh and Cameron Wake waiting to attack the QB.

Dolphins RB Lamar Miller has been on fire over the last two games as both a runner and receiver, Miller is a dangerous weapon who is more than capable of helping Miami control the clock and the Patriots have a poor run defence ranking 21^st in my Defensive rankings so he could have another decent outing here.

The trouble is the Dolphins cannot convert 3rd Downs, they are last in the league at just 29% on the season and even in the win last week they were 1 out of 9 on 3rd Down.

And, they are banged up in the secondary with Grimes and McCain listed with knee injuries.

Not converting 3rd downs and having key player's missing from your secondary is not ideal when facing New England, they also have a poor run defence ranked 19th in my rankings so LeGarrette Blount and/or Dion Lewis could go well on the ground.

Also travelling to Gillette Stadium on a short week is a difficult task for any team, this makes the Patriots solid favourites by default, so to stay competitive Miami need to avoid turnovers, get maximum effort from Miller and Landry on offence and get Suh and Wake destroying the Patriots offensive line.

Does that sound familiar to Sundays Jets blueprint to conquer the Patriots? The problem for Miami is that New York had a much better team to execute that game plan and while the Jets did give the Patriots their toughest challenge of the season, New England won anyway. Now Miami have played better under a new coach, but that momentum will only last so long, they still have the same players and I need to see how they respond when they are in a competitive environment.

It all points to the Patriots to me and I’m taking New England -8 at 1.98 with Matchbook.