Although severe weather battered the east this week, today the seven outdoor National Football League game sites have mostly calm conditions while six of the 13 games today are played under a dome.
Yesterday, the Buffalo Bills clinched their first division title since 1995 with their road win over the Denver Broncos. The Bills win reduces the Miami Dolphins chances for a playoff date via a Wild Card berth. The New England Patriots, who suffered a stunning loss last season on the final day of the regular season while favored by 17 points over the Dolphins, a decision that cost the Patriots a first round playoff bye, have an opportunity to dent Miami’s postseason hopes today.
The Patriots beat the Dolphins in their regular season opener, but since Miami lost three of their first four games they have played nearly as well as any team in the league. They bring their 8-5 season mark into action today at home needing wins and help the rest for the way to land a playoff date. While the public likes the Dolphins in this one, I do too, the books and no doubt a lot of smart money are backing Bill Belichick’s chances against a rookie quarterback.
The line opened with the Dolphins favored by three points, a line that has been reduced to as low as one point this morning despite nearly 70% of public money backing the home team favorite. As I said, I like the Dolphins for a lot of reasons, but for sound business practices I can’t recommend a wager into this storm of wise guy action.
Instead, we have a couple teams today that are either looking to bounce off a big loss with a win, or following a big win decidedly projected to head into a loss.
Last week, the Philadelphia Eagles made a switch at starting quarterback, and in his first professional start Jalen Hurts upset the playoff bound New Orleans Saints on their home field. Today, Hurts gets his second professional start, and we don’t anticipate it going to go as smoothly for him when he meets the Cardinals in Arizona.
Since the Houston Texans changed head coaches, replacing Bill O’Brien with Romeo Crennel, the Texans have shown a remarkable turnaround. They had lost six of their first seven games, their only win over the talent challenged Jacksonville Jaguars. After Crennel took over during the Texans Week Eight bye, Houston won three of the first four games under his leadership. They now have lost two straight, which includes a narrow defeat two weeks ago against the Indianapolis Colts and a trouncing last Sunday at the hands of the Chicago Bears.
Today, they get a second bite of the apple against the division leading Colts, and are in a perfect position to play spoiler.
The public has checked in with their three favorite plays of the week beginning with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-6½) over the Atlanta Falcons and followed by the Indianapolis Colts (-7½) over the Houston Texans and Cleveland Browns (-6½) over the New York Giants in the Sunday night telecast.
As for the Qoxhi Week 15 Sunday selections, they are now posted on this site and if a Bullet Play develops in the final hour leading up to the day’s first kickoff, that game will be added to the list of recommendations by 9:45 a.m. Pacific Time.