Miami Dolphins Climb Odds Boards After Surprising 3-0 Start
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After just three weeks of the NFL regular season, only two teams remain unbeaten, and both are somewhat unlikely candidates to share that honor: the Miami Dolphins and the Philadelphia Eagles.
The last two weeks have been chaotic for Miami. The Dolphins had to rally from a 35-14 third-quarter deficit to the Baltimore Ravens before winning 42-38 in Week 2. On Sunday, Miami had the dubious distinction of punting it off the butt of a backside blocker for a safety, giving the Buffalo Bills one more chance at a game-winning drive. But the Bills ran out of time as Josh Allen couldn’t get off a spike near field goal range, allowing the Dolphins to secure a 21-19 win.
"I don't like these shock endings," Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said after the Bills win. "But I'm just really, really happy for the team because this much I do know: Teams win football games, and if you are going to have success over the long haul, you have to have confidence that whatever phase can win a football game for you, can go ahead and do that."
Miami’s Super Bowl odds have continued to shrink with the solid start. Before the season started, the Dolphins were +4000 to win it all, but after a 3-0 start, the team is down to +1800 at DraftKings Sportsbook.
The Dolphins are also +1000 to win the AFC and +230 to win the AFC East, where the Bills are still favored at –250 despite Sunday’s loss.
Tua Tagovailova MVP Odds, Injury Controversy
Both the Eagles and Dolphins have the distinction of being led by former Alabama quarterbacks who were once teammates. Jalen Hurts has established himself as a frontrunner for MVP; he’s currently +600, trailing only the Bills’ Josh Allen (+300) on the odds board for MVP.
Tagovailoa has the fifth-best odds for MVP at DraftKings at +1400. In the comeback win against the Ravens, Tagovailoa completed 36 of 50 passes for 469 yards and six touchdowns. He was solid against Buffalo, converting on 13 of 18 passes for 186 yards and a touchdown, but ended up making headlines on being able to return to the game.
Tagovailoa appeared disoriented and struggling to keep his balance after getting knocked down. It was a scary sequence for a player who appeared out of it. But he managed to return to the game, which some are questioning. The team said Tagovailoa is not in concussion protocol and mentioned the issue was stemming from his back.
McDaniel reiterated the team went through the proper procedures in allowing Tagovailoa to continue playing.
"The one thing that our players know more than anybody is there are certain things that I'm very sensitive to, I've been called emotional from time to time, and one of those things is player health," McDaniel said on Monday. "I don't mess around with that at all. Tua was pretty annoyed with me in the game because he knew what hurt and didn't understand why people kept talking to him about what we were talking to him about. I think watching replays, he probably could.”
Mike McDaniel NFL Coach of the Year Odds
Miami's undefeated start has McDaniel as one of the favorites for Coach of the Year. McDaniel is +500, trailing only Philadelphia’s Nick Sirianni (+400) for the best odds after three weeks.
A major part of McDaniel taking the Miami job was getting more out of Tagovailoa. McDaniel recently spent four years with the San Francisco 49ers, including three as the run game coordinator and last season as the team’s offensive coordinator. To this point, Tagovailoa has thrived with McDaniel as head coach. He ranks second in passing yards this season (925), averaging 308 passing yards per contest. His eight passing touchdowns are also tied for the third-most in the league.
“You just want to be as good as you can get and continue to grow,” McDaniel said of his team’s 3-0 start. “If you are talking about goals that happen 15 weeks from now, you're just going to get hit in the mouth because every single week in the National Football League everyone is giving you their best shot.
“So I think now we can talk about not sneaking up on people … Right now there's no difference really between Game 4 and Game 1. We have to do our best to win football games, and if you win football games, you can kind of control whether or not you get to play playoff football or not, and that's kind of our objective.
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