NFL Regular Season Prop Bets–Will The Miami Dolphins Go 0-16?
Over the past few weeks we’ve been discussing prop bets in the NHL and NBA but they’re a great betting opportunity in any sport. Although we’ve been looking at pre-season prop bets there are plenty that are also available after the start of the season. We’re heading into the third Sunday of the NFL season and two things are obvious: 1) The defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots are very good once again and 2) The Miami Dolphins are very, very bad.
Several sportsbooks have posted season long props that play off of the above referenced realities. In this post, we’ll look at a few of these and give our analysis:
NFL REGULAR SEASON PROP BETS
WILL THE MIAMI DOLPHINS GO 0-16 IN THE 2019 NFL REGULAR SEASON?
YES: +400
NO: -900
Although the legendary teams like the 1972 Miami Dolphins–who went undefeated in the regular season (14-0) and won three more in the playoffs to complete the year 17-0–get more recognition (and deservedly so) there’s always been plenty of bad teams in the NFL. After two games, the 2019 Miami Dolphins look like they could be ‘historically bad’. The Dolphins are 0-2 and haven’t been remotely competitive in either game losing by a combined margin of 102-10.
Even for bad teams, however, winless seasons are extremely uncommon. Since the NFL schedule expanded to 16 games in 1978 there have only been two teams to finish 0-16: the 2008 Detroit Lions and the 2017 Cleveland Browns. A couple of teams deserve ‘honorable mention’. The 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished 0-14 and almost went back to back winless seasons losing the first 12 games of the 1977 season. Had the season been 16 games in 1976 they would have been 0-16. The only other NFL team to finish with a ‘0’ in the win column since 1960 was the 1982 Baltimore Colts who went 0-8-1 in the strike shortened season.
BEYOND THE W/L RECORDS
So how bad were these teams *really*? One way to compare is to look at their scoring statistics:
1976 TAMPA BAY BUCS: Tampa Bay scored 125 points and conceded 412. This works out to an average final score of 29.42 to 8.92 or a per game deficit of 20.5 PPG. This per game deficit is by far the worst of any winless team to date. The 1977 Bucs saw significant statistical improvement even before they won two games to conclude the season. They allowed 223 points for an improvement of nearly 200 points. They scored only 103, however. This made the average final score 15.92 to 7.35 or a per game deficit of 8.57 points. The 76 Bucs lost by 40+ points only once though they allowed 40 points to be scored against them on four occasions. The 77 Bucs didn’t lose by 40+ points nor did they allow 40 points.
2008 DETROIT LIONS: Oddly enough, Detroit went 4-0 in the preseason. Scored 268 points, allowed 517 for a per game average of 32.31 against and 16.75 or an average deficit of 15.56 PPG. The Lions didn’t lose any games by 40+ points though they did allow 40 points 3 times.
2017 CLEVELAND BROWNS: Curiously, the Browns *also* went a perfect 4-0 in the preseason. Keep in mind that we’re talking 16 game seasons now with Cleveland scoring 234 and allowing 410 or a per game of 25.62 against and 14.62 for making an average deficit of 11 points per game. The Browns didn’t lose a game by 40+ nor did they allow 40 points.
The 1982 Colts had a worse PPG deficit than any of these teams, losing by an average of 15.94 PPG. If you throw out their 20-20 tie against the Green Bay Packers their 8 losses came by a 17.88 PPG margin. Incidentally, the 82 Packers had the best winning percentage in the NFC Central and the third best in the entire conference at 5-3-1.
SO HOW BAD ARE THE DOLPHINS?
Even if we assume that the Dolphins first two games will be their worst performances of the season they’re already historically bad. They’ve already lost two games by 40+ points, allowed an average of 56 PPG against and the 59 points they allowed on opening day is the second most points allowed in any NFL game in nearly 20 years.
Their schedule doesn’t do them many favors either. They play six games against opponents that went .500 or better last year but theproblem is that two of the sub .500 teams were the Buffalo Bills who went 6-10 LY but are 2-0 this year and the Cleveland Browns who are expected to do great things this season. Assuming that both the Bills and Browns finish with a winning record this year they’ll face 9 more teams that will likely finish over .500.
Working in their favor–they have five games against teams that are currently 0-2 including a 10/13 game against the Washington Redskins at home off a bye week. Making the situation even more favorable they catch Washington off of a 10/6 game against New England and a 10/20 game against San Francisco–the classic ‘sandwich spot’. They also play the Jets twice though Sam Darnold should be back under center for both games. They play at the NY Giants on 12/15 but there’s always a chance that they could be a different team under Daniel Jones at QB. They play Cincinnati at home on 12/22.
Assuming that they reach December 0-11 they’ll open the month with a tough game against Philadelphia at home before playing at the Jets, at the Giants and home to the Bengals before ending the season at New England. There’s a good chance that the Patriots might not *need* a win in that game so counter-intuitively that could be a ‘winnable game’. A game that could go either way is 10/28 at Pittsburgh with Mason Rudolph most likely at QB for the home team.
Here’s the problem–a lot of times a particularly bad team actually gets a more focused efforts from other bad teams than they do from elite opponents. Miami plays at Dallas this weekend and while the Cowboys might not cover the -23 point spread they can beat the Dolphins with a ‘sub par’ effort and start looking toward their 9/29 game at New Orleans. For other bad teams in the league they could see Miami as a ‘winnable game’. There’s also the risk that losing to the Dolphins could be a ‘worst case scenario’ for opponents if they continue to perform at a historically bad level. No team wants to lose, but losing to a historically bad team is particularly humiliating.
There’s one final ‘X Factor’ with the Dolphins. Unlike the 2017 Browns, 2008 Lions and 76/77 Bucs there was never any pretense that the team wouldn’t lose a lot of games. The 2017 Browns were hoping to improve on a 1-15 record the year before and the 2008 Lions were actually optimistic entering the year that they’d get back over .500 after a 7-9 record in 2007. The Dolphins might not deliberately be trying to ‘tank’ their entire season but their personnel is so bad they might not have to ‘try’.
So why not take a shot on the Miami Dolphins to go 0-16? You can get ‘plus money’ betting that they’ll continue to be awful or lay a huge price to win a little return that they’ll do something right. At +400, implied probability is 20% and it sure seems that the probability that the Dolphins will continue to spiral downward is greater than that. At -900, implied probability is 90% and I’m nowhere near 90% certain that Miami wins this season.