St. Louis Rams (3-2) at Miami Dolphins (2-3)
The Rams appear to be the public’s new hot young team. After an impressive defensive effort and a 14 point home win over the previously undefeated Cardinals, the Rams now stand at 3-2 and are over .500 for the first time since 2006. They are the publicly backed dogs in this game. I love to bet against the public anyway, but there are several reasons why I feel the public is really wrong here and this is coming from someone who had the Rams as a 9 win team before the season.
For one, their opponents, the Arizona Cardinals, were overrated. They were and still are the league’s 28th ranked team in terms of yards per play differential, thanks to a dead last ranking in offensive yards per play. With Kevin Kolb under center, no running game, and no offensive line, the Cardinals’ offensive catastrophe was inevitable. As good as the Cardinals’ defense is, their offense is equally bad. The Rams have a good defense and it’s one of the reasons I liked them before the season, but they’re not as good as they looked last Thursday Night.
Speaking of Thursday Night, weird things happen on Thursday Night. With 3 days to prepare, it’s often ugly football and has some weird results because one team, often the “superior team” is completely unprepared. I don’t put a ton of stock into the results of these games in general so I don’t put a ton of stock into the Rams’ defensive shutdown of an incredibly poor Cardinals offense, especially since these games tend to be lower scoring anyway (this week’s game between Pittsburgh and Tennessee was the first time the total went over on Thursday Night this year).
So their defense is good, but not as good as they looked last Thursday Night, what about the offense? Well, one of the reasons I liked the Rams coming into the season, in addition to a strong defense, was because I was expecting them to have better health offensively. Injuries decimated their offensive line last year, as well as Sam Bradford’s favorite receiver Danny Amendola. So what’s happened this year? Well, injuries have decimated their offensive line, as well as Sam Bradford’s favorite receiver Danny Amendola.
Left tackle Rodger Saffold is out for at least another week. Center Scott Wells is done for the year. Rokevious Watkins, who stepped in at left guard when Robert Turner moved to center, is also out. The Rams are starting 3 guys on their offensive front who either weren’t starters to begin the year or have had to change positions. Left tackle, center, and right guard were their strong positions on the line coming into the year. 2 of those 3 starters are out, leaving Harvey Dahl as the only competent starter on a line otherwise comprised of journeyman. As a result, their offensive line ranks 30th in the league in pass block efficiency.
Meanwhile, the Amendola injury really stings. Without him, they simply have no playmakers in the receiving corps. Even though he missed most of last week with injury, he still accounts for close to 40% of their receiving yards on the season. His absence was noticeable last week. After he left, Bradford completed just 2 of his final 9 passes.
This offense looked awfully similar to the one that ranked dead last in the league in points per game last year and it makes sense considering it’s pretty much the same personnel. Some of that was just Arizona’s defense and an improved and matured Sam Bradford, as well as better coaching, will protect this team from being that bad, but this offense takes a major hit without Amendola and I don’t think this line fully takes that into account (more on that later).
One other major difference between this year’s offense and last year’s offense is Steven Jackson. The now 29-year-old back is averaging just 3.5 YPC, as opposed to the 4.4 YPC he averaged last season. Considering his age and career usage, this is a concern and I don’t expect the injuries to their offensive line and receiving corps to have a positive impact on this. In fact, it’ll probably be negative because he’s now the only one defenses really need to game plan for and they can sell out on the run.
The Dolphins, this week, are the league’s #1 ranked run defense and it’s not even close as no one is within a half yard of their 2.7 YPC average. No lead back has gained more than 3.0 YPC in any game against them so far, very impressive considering they’ve faced, among others, Arian Foster and Darren McFadden. It’s just not a good matchup for the Rams.
Back to this line, injuries not even taken into account, the Rams rank 22nd in the league in yards per play differential. The difference between their yards per play differential and the Dolphins’ is .7 in favor of Miami, which translates to a “real line” of -7.5 in favor of Miami. Given that, we have at least 3.5 points of line value with the Dolphins and that’s if you don’t take Amendola’s injury into account. I think it should be taken into account a good deal and this line has only moved a half point since last week despite the fact that both teams pulled upsets last week, so I don’t think it has really taken that injury into account.
On to the other team that pulled an upset last week, I believe the Dolphins are the team that should be the public’s hot young team. The Dolphins are 2-3 right now, but they could easily be 3-2 or 4-1 having lost two straight games in overtime before last week’s upset win in Cincinnati. Since their week 1 blowout loss in Houston, which doesn’t look so bad now, they’ve blown out Oakland, lost twice in overtime to the Jets and Dolphins, and beaten the Bengals.
The league’s 6th ranked scoring defense in 2011, they’ve picked up right where they left off led by Defensive Player of the Year candidate Cameron Wake. They can run the ball and Ryan Tannehill seems to have settled in to life as a starting quarterback in the NFL. They rank 10th in the league in yards per play differential. I wish there were some applicable trends and that we were getting field goal protection with the Dolphins, but I do feel they are the right side for a small play.
Public lean: St. Louis (new thing I’m adding, siding with the odds makers on bets is not a bad thing to do since they make so much money, so I’m listing this here to allow readers to “fade” the public, if they so choose, in this example, the odds makers win if Miami covers)
Sharps lean: MIA 12 STL 7
Final update: No change.
Miami Dolphins 20 St. Louis Rams 10
Pick against spread: Miami -4 (-110) 2 units
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