This story was originally published by Dead Spin
Week 2 of the NFL season kicks off Thursday with a showdown of a pair of rivals that could be battling for the AFC East crown come December.
The Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins may have started the year 1-0, but both teams needed to dig out of early double-digit holes last Sunday (despite being home favorites!) to make it happen.
Before you fire up Prime Video for “Thursday Night Football,” here are three betting picks we like the most for Buffalo-Miami:
Buffalo stampede
The Bills are 11-1 against the Dolphins since Dec. 30, 2018, with 10 regular-season victories and a wild-card round win two postseasons ago. Those numbers are reminiscent of another rivalry in this division, the New England Patriots’ complete dominance of the New York Jets.
“That’s gonna be the narrative, that we can’t beat the Bills,” Tua Tagovailoa said this week, “and until we do beat them and we beat them consistently, none of that’s gonna change.”
Miami enters as 2.5-point favorites, and if you deploy the old rule of thumb that home-field advantage nets a team three points in the spread, these teams are basically even.
But given the Bills’ complete ownership of this series, combined with injuries to the Dolphins’ dangerous one-two running back combo of Raheem Mostert and De’Von Achane (more on them below), we’re siding with Buffalo until we see Tagovailoa and company flip that narrative.
The pick: Bills moneyline, +120 (FanDuel)
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Pass happy
Mostert has been ruled out of Thursday’s game with a chest injury, while Achane (ankle) is considered a game-time decision after practicing Wednesday.
There’s still speed all around the field for Miami, namely with star receivers Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, whose YAC ability provides the possibility of inflating Tagovailoa’s passing totals.
Tagovailoa hasn’t thrown for 300 yards against Buffalo since that 56-26 loss in the final week of his rookie season. But no quarterback in Week 1 did better than Tua’s 338 yards against Jacksonville, much of which came on the comeback trail after the Jaguars moved ahead early.
You can easily see a similar script unfold this week, where Tagovailoa has to pull his team back with the passing game. Of the alternate passing-yard targets we can choose from, 275 feels like the right mix of risk and reward.
The pick: Tua Tagovailoa 275+ passing yards, +110 (DraftKings)
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Rookie has sweet debut
Get ready to learn the name Jaylen Wright. The Dolphins drafted the running back in the fourth round out of Tennessee, and he did not suit up in Week 1, but he stands to gain the most from Mostert and possibly Achane being sidelined.
Word out of Dolphins camp is that the team loves Wright, and he was a sexy sleeper pick in many a fantasy league. The Dolphins, like the San Francisco 49ers, can plug seemingly any young back into their outside zone scheme and gain first down after first down—did you watch Jordan Mason for the Niners on Monday?
This is where shopping for better odds pays off. Illustrating the hype around Wright, Fanduel lists him at a mere +140 to score a touchdown anytime—pretty short odds for a kid who’s never played an NFL game before. DraftKings offers a more respectable number for us to grab.
The pick: Jaylen Wright anytime TD scorer, +170 (DraftKings)
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