Each week throughout the 2023 NFL Season, coach Kevin Kelley will give a coach's perspective and provide analysis for a few games against the spread.
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Miami Dolphins vs. Dallas Cowboys Spread Prediction:
Look for the Cowboys and Dolphins to go OVER 49 points.
Why I like the Cowboys and Dolphins to go over 49 points in Week 16:
Dak Prescott and the Cowboys ride into Miami with their cowboy hats off and in hand after being just beaten down by the Buffalo Bills last week. The worst part of it for the Cowboys is that the Bills, using James Cook and Josh Allen, rushed for over 260 yards on their defense. That doesn’t bode well against a team in the Dolphins that leads the league in YPC.
I think this Dolphin offense is the perfect offense to frustrate the Cowboys defense. Digging deeper, what may hurt more is that the Dolphins use more pre-snap motion on running plays than anyone in the NFL. That’s not the bad news. The bad news is that the Cowboys are dead last against the run when there is pre-snap motion.
With the Dolphins averaging over 5 YPC for the year, that does two things. It sets up that awesome play-action pass game, and it also keeps the Cowboys offense off the field.
The Bills bullied the Cowboys last week in the running game, and it completely took the strength of the Cowboys defense away, rushing the passer with Micah Parsons and company.
The Dolphins have that same ability. If you can’t get them in passing downs, it’s hard to make that pass rush mean something. And even if they do, Tua Tagovailoa is the single best QB in the league at getting the ball out of his hands (2.38 secs) the quickest. That will frustrate the Cowboys even more.
From a coaching standpoint, the other thing that the Dolphins can take advantage of is the aggressive secondary of Dallas. They can double-move them to death or just run right past them, like they do most people anyway, probably anytime they want.
And yes I saw the numbers on Tua when he is pressured and how poor his play has been then. I just think with all the things mentioned above, that they will score.
On the other side of the ball, I am not sure the Dolphins can stop the Cowboys either.
I think it will do the Cowboys some good to have a loss in their near memory as I believe they are 11–1 after their last 12 losses. That may mean they play very well, at least on one side of the ball, when they are angry. I think their offense will show up.
I hope a loss, that usually makes teams take a long look at themselves, will make them think long and hard about taking even more time away from Michael Gallup. He has been a complete liability on offense, and it’s one thing if you have tremendous speed and are on the field because at least you can effectively clear out the defense for under routes. But he isn’t even that.
There is too much speed and talent in the form of Kavontae Turpin that could be in the game instead. CeeDee Lamb has proven that he can get open against anyone. And it’s time to use Brandin Cooks and Jake Ferguson even more.
Hope is not a plan, but the Cowboys have had one lately. Tony Pollard still averaged 4.7 YPC last week, Dak ran 4 times for 27 yards, and they only had the ball for 24 minutes because the Bills ran the ball so well.
The difference is the Bills didn’t break a ton of long ones, and the Dolphins tend to do that so both teams should still get in a lot of offensive plays.
The Dolphins defense is middle of the pack at No. 13 in DVOA, and I talked about the Dolphins offense neutralizing the Cowboys defense because they do exactly what the Cowboys are worst at.
I think this game ends in a 34-27 type of game, and those 61 points are plenty to go OVER the total of 49 as it currently sits.
I’ll take that over 49 and hope it’s there by the end of the 3rd quarter.