Miami Dolphins

Dolphins at Patriots: Odds, trends and more

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

Miami and head coach Adam Gase visit the Patriots for the first time this season.

Oddshark tallies the Dolphins as seven-point road underdogs against the Pats. If quarterback Ryan Tannehill repeats his performance from last week, it will be a long 60 minutes for the Dolphins. Many thought the Phins would be catching a break in avoiding Tom Brady for at least one game but the Patriots offense doesn’t look to have missed a beat with Garoppolo under center. He hit seven different targets Sunday, including himself on a batted ball.

In 101 head-to-head matchups against one another, Miami leads the all-time series 53-48. In their last five matchups, Miami is 3-2. But they haven’t beaten New England at Gillette stadium since 2008, also the last time they made the playoffs.

Their last matchup was January 3 of last season, with Miami winning 20-10 in a meaningless Week 17 as the Patriots had already clinched their playoff spot and Miami was playing for nothing but pride.

Miami would like nothing better than to spoil the Patriots home opener. In order to accomplish that goal, they’ll need a reproduction of last week’s defensive performance, as well as some more points. The Patriots haven’t lost a home opener in 15 years. Their last home opener loss was 2001, when they lost 10-3 to the Jets.

Odds

Line: NE (-7)

Over/Under: 43

New England shouldn’t have a hard time covering the spread. While Miami’s defensive performance last week was encouraging, it won’t be enough to make up for their anemic offense.

The Patriots will get their points, no matter who’s quarterback. It’s up to Tannehill to keep up with them. Enough with the lateral throws and bubble screens, it’s time for Adam Gase to slowly but surely open things up a bit. Jarvis Landry can do more than just run horizontally; they need his vertical threat felt by the Pats defense.

Rattling Garoppolo early will play into Miami’s favor if they can use stunt blitzes and disguise coverages better than Arizona did. Both teams have a weeks worth of tape on each other, so we’ll find out just how far that goes come 1:00 p.m. ET Sunday.