NFL Pick: Dolphins ML (+120) at Bovada (visit our Bovada Review)
The NFL nailed Sunday Night Football for Week 7. We get to see the Miami Dolphins, the best offense in the league this year, take on the defending NFC champions, the Philadelphia Eagles, who are coming off their first loss of the year to the Jets.
The Eagles are a 2.5-point home favorite at the top-rated sportsbooks. Miami is 5-0 against teams that have a combined 5 wins between them right now, and the Dolphins were crushed 48-20 in their only game against a quality opponent in Buffalo. This is a big test for Mike McDaniel’s team.
But it’s a test for the Eagles too, who frankly never beat this kind of team in the Nick Sirianni-Jalen Hurts era. We are going to explore that and more while giving you multiple reasons why Miami is the right choice for your upset pick in the NFL this week.
Miami Dolphins vs. Philadelphia Eagles
Sunday, October 22, 2023 – 08:20 PM EDT at Lincoln Financial Field
How Great Is Miami’s Offense?
The Dolphins are hands down the best offense in the NFL this year. Miami’s 2,992 yards of offense through 6 games ranks as the 2nd most ever to start a season in NFL history. Only the 2000 Rams (3,056) cracked 3,000 yards in 6 games.
On the scoring front, Miami’s 223 points are tied for the 6th-most points through 6 games in NFL history. They are only 7 points behind the 2007 Patriots at this point of the season.
We’ll see if Miami can keep up this historic pace, but one record that could fall is the first 2,000-yard receiving season to Tyreek Hill. He is averaging 135.7 receiving yards per game, putting him on pace for 2,307 yards in a 17-game season. Incredible stuff from the best speedster in the game.
That’s really the key to what makes Miami special. According to Next Gen Stats, the Dolphins now have 9 of the top 14 plays this season with the fastest ball carrier, including all of the top 5 plays. While Hill accounts for 4 of the 9 plays, running backs Raheem Mostert (2) and De’Von Achane (3) also have multiple plays on the list.
Achane Injured, Mostert Shines
Achane is unfortunately still out with injury for this game, but Mostert can do the job and just scored another 3 touchdowns last week against Carolina. The Dolphins have plenty of firepower as Jaylen Waddle has not really gotten off to the best start behind Hill this season, and he is another speed demon.
But where the Dolphins could also land in the history books by season’s end is for their explosive plays that drive up their per-play averages.
Miami is averaging 9.5 yards per pass and 6.5 yards per rush – numbers that would be unheard of in NFL history. Only 5 offenses have ever averaged 8.0 yards per pass and 5.0 yards per rush in the same season: 1951 Rams, 1954 Rams, 1963 Chargers, 2013 Eagles, and 2019 Titans. Only the last 2 happened in the Super Bowl era. Only the 1963 Chargers made it to 5.6 yards per rush. Only the 1954 Rams finished above 9.0 yards per pass.
We are potentially watching a historic offense here.
Jalen Hurts Has Never Won a Game Against a Team Like This
Without writing 2,500 words about this topic alone, you are going to have to trust the research on this one. In Hurts’ career, he has had the good fortune of playing multiple teams where their superior starting quarterback was out with an injury that week, including the 2020 Saints (faced Taysom Hill instead of Drew Brees) and the 2022 Cowboys (faced Cooper Rush instead of Dak Prescott).
Even in the 2022 NFC Championship Game against San Francisco, Brock Purdy injured his elbow on the opening drive and the 49ers were soon left without a quarterback who could throw after Josh Johnson was knocked out with a concussion.
In his first 38 starts through the 2022 season, Hurts was 14-2 against quarterbacks ranked in the bottom half of QBR for the season. He was also 7-2 against backup quarterbacks who did not have enough plays to qualify for the QBR ranking.
But Hurts is 4-9 in games against opposing quarterbacks that ranked in the top 15 in QBR. Worse, Hurts is 0-7 against teams with a top 15 quarterback in QBR and when the team won 10-plus games for the season. That includes a record of 0-2 against both Patrick Mahomes (Chiefs) and Tom Brady (Buccaneers). The other losses were to Derek Carr (2021 Raiders), Jimmy Garoppolo (2021 49ers), and Dak Prescott (2021 Cowboys).
You can say Hurts has never won a game in the NFL against a good team with a starting quarterback having a good season.
Now, we do not know how many wins Miami will finish with, but at 5-1, a 10-win season is not out of the question. We do not know when Tua Tagovailoa will finish in QBR, but seeing as how he currently ranks No. 3 (74.7) and is the odds-on favorite to win the MVP award, he likely will finish high this year.
Eagles’ Defensive Concerns
Technically, the Eagles are 3-0 this year against quarterbacks who rank in the top 15 in QBR, notching wins over the Vikings (Kirk Cousins is No. 12), Buccaneers (Baker Mayfield is No. 8), and Rams (Matthew Stafford is No. 9). But will any of those teams win 10-plus games? That’s not looking great for any of them. Will those quarterbacks all finish the season strong? That’s not for sure either.
But the overriding point is that the Eagles have not delivered in these matchups under Sirianni and Hurts, and the blame is not entirely on the offense of course. Jonathan Gannon’s defense fared poorly in these games as he allowed all 7 of those quarterbacks to complete over 73% of their passes while averaging 32.9 points per game.
Gannon is coaching Arizona now, and the Eagles have shown some regression on that side of the ball so far. Philadelphia has not even played many good offenses yet, but we have already seen the Eagles allow 28 points to the one-dimensional Vikings and 31 points to Sam “Love Taking Sacks” Howell and the Commanders.
Both games were at home too.
Hurts and Turnovers
If Hurts is going to get into a shootout with his old teammate Tua, he better protect the ball better. Hurts has already thrown 7 interceptions in 2023 after throwing 6 all of last season. His interception rate (3.3%) is currently the worst of his career, and this is on the heels of one of his worst games when he threw 3 interceptions against a New York defense that did not have Sauce Gardner.
The Miami defense has not played well for coordinator Vic Fangio yet this year, but it is encouraging that the Dolphins only allowed 2 offensive touchdowns to the Giants and Panthers the last 2 weeks. The Miami offense has coughed up 2 touchdowns on interceptions in those games, so that’s only 23 net points allowed over the last 2 weeks.
The Eagles are obviously much better than most of the offenses the Dolphins have played, and the Bills (48 points) and Chargers (34 points) have taken it to this unit. However, the Eagles failed to score after halftime against the Jets last week. In Week 5, the Eagles were held to just 2 field goals after halftime against the Rams.
Not everything is clicking for Philadelphia right now, but at least the Brotherly Shove remains unbeatable in short-yardage situations. But the Dolphins have stopped teams on 8-of-10 4th-down plays this year, so maybe we’ll see a pivotal play come up there.
The Pick
Neither defense has forced a takeaway since Week 3. Not to be outdone by Hill, A.J. Brown has gone over 125 yards in 4 straight games. This could be the shootout of the year if we are lucky as Sunday Night Football games have been awful for scoring this season.
But the Dolphins look like a smart team that knows their offensive identity. The Eagles look a little confused about what team they want to be this year with how they are using D’Andre Swift, DeVonta Smith, and Dallas Goedert. Signing Julio Jones in 2023? In this economy?
Maybe the Dolphins will prove to be a paper tiger with a bad defense, but I like the way they are playing right now on offense, and I trust Tagovailoa a little more with the game on the line than I do Hurts. This is exactly the kind of game the Eagles need to prove they can win but give me the Dolphins for your NFL picks this week.
NFL Pick: Dolphins ML (+120) at Bovada
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