Sing it with me: it’s the most wonderful time of the year.
Fantasy playoffs are starting; NFL playoffs are right around the corner. College basketball is back (but we’ll save that for another time).
Quick and dirty: here are my top two plays for Week 14.
The Titans are over MACHINES, and as such, I want to join the party. What do I define as a ‘machine”? They’re 9-2-1 against the over - not bad!
When you think about run-first offenses, you don’t generally equate them to points, points, points, but this Titans team is built differently: with Derrick Henry leading the charge, they get chunk after chunk.
Henry’s ability to change defensive schemes sets up Tannehill perfectly as well, and in the last calendar year, surprisingly, his numbers (yards, TDs, and INTs) are some of the best in the league.
On the other side of the ball, we find a Titans defense that can’t stop anyone - a perfect recipe for points.
Looking at this matchup specifically, I also love the total movement compared to their first matchup - when these two teams played in September, the total was set at 44.5 (the game went way over), and now the total is coming up to 52.5, a nice indication to me that we should be, without a doubt, expecting points.
The Jaguars have a similar setup to the Titans in the sense that their defense also can’t stop anyone, and they can put up enough points to get us to the over.
Last 6 games for the Jags? 24, 25, 3, 20, 25, 29 points scored, allowing at least 24 points in all of those.
As Patrick Henry, American Hero always says,
“Give me POINTS or give me death.”
I am truly not a believe in the Dolphins, although I probably should be at this point. But who have they actually beat? WHO!
They beat the Jets twice (0-12), the Chargers (3-9), the Jaguars (1-11), and the Joe-Burrow-less Bengals (2-9-1).
Good wins? They beat the Rams (in the flukiest win of all time - defensive & special team touchdowns while logging close to 300 yards less than LA), smacked San Francisco (as SF was floundering), and had a solid win against the Cardinals, perhaps their best overall game of the season.
Nonetheless, that strength of schedule is POOR (and they lost to Seattle, Buffalo, New England, Denver), and with the red hot Chiefs coming into South Beach, I am compelled to fade them.
Per the Action Network, the Chiefs on the road is something we simply must bet. Why? Andy Reid has been the most profitable road warrior in the league since joining the Chiefs in 2013, going 39-21-1 ATS. Juicy.
Under the hood, the numbers match up for the Chiefs as well: #1 offensive DVOA compared to #19 for MIA; #18 (but #13 against the pass, #30 against the run) compared to MIA #11 on defense.
Miami has been great against the pass this season (and are for sure a talented squad), but once again, WHO have they faced?
The only QB they’ve faced on the same level of Mahomet was potentially Week 4 against Seattle, where Russell Wilson went off for 360 yards and 2 TDs. Nice.
The rest of the QBs they’ve played have been largely mediocre (Jags, Jets x2, 49ers, Broncos, Bengals) or run-first (Patriots, Buffalo, Arizona).
“Good QBs”? They stifled rookie QB Justin Herbert, but Herbert isn’t Mahomes.
This is for sure a public play, but it feels like it’s time to end this mirage that is the Miami Dolphins.
That’s it, baby. Week 14.
We live. We bet. We die.
*mic drop*
