New England Patriots (10-6) at Miami Dolphins (8-8)

The Dolphins won seven straight games, but that came to a crashing halt last week when they were blown out by a final score of 34-3 in Tennessee. Their losing streak was always the result of an easy schedule, as their only two games over their seven-game winning streak against teams with a record better than 5-11 were against the Baltimore Ravens, who were in a near impossible spot playing on a short week after an overtime game, a spot in which teams have covered just 3 out of 28 times historically, and the New Orleans Saints, who were starting a fourth string quarterback behind a skeleton crew offensive line, also a near impossible situation. Their other five opponents on their winning streak are a combined 21-59.

On the other hand, the Dolphins have struggled in tougher games, losing four of five games against likely playoff qualifiers by double digits. The one exception was week one against the Dolphins’ opponents this week the New England Patriots, but the Patriots won the first down rate and yards per play battle by 0.6 and 2.56% respectively in that game, losing because they lost the fumble margin by -2 in a 1-point loss. Fortunately for the Patriots, fumble margin is highly non-predictive, while yards per play and first down rate differential are much more predictive. On the season, in terms of schedule adjusted mixed efficiency, which is based on yards per play and first down rate, the Patriots rank 4th, while the Dolphins rank 30th.

The Patriots also were starting a rookie quarterback with a bunch of free agent additions week one and did not have their full offensive line, so the Patriots should fare even better in the second matchup than they did in a week one matchup which they should have won if not for two lost fumbles. Unfortunately, we’ve lost a lot of line value with the Patriots in the past week, as they have gone from 2.5-point favorites on the early line last week to 6-point favorites this week, in the wake of their blowout loss over the Jaguars and the Dolphins’ blowout loss to the Titans. My calculated line favors the Patriots by 8.5, so we’re still getting some line value with them, but I think I would need this line to drop to at least 5.5 for the Patriots to be worth betting.

Update: This line has dropped to 5.5 before gametime, so I am going to place a small bet on New England.

New England Patriots 26 Miami Dolphins 17

Pick against the spread: New England -5.5

Confidence: Medium