Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins: Week 16 NFL Pick

Buffalo Bills (5-9) at Miami Dolphins (6-8) The Bills got blown out last week, losing 50-17 “at home” in Toronto to the Seahawks. As a result, they rank 28th in points per drive at -0.58. The Dolphins, on the other hand, rank 17th at -0.04. If you take the difference, multiply by 11 (average amount of drives per team per game) and add 2.5 points for home field, you get that Miami should be favored here by 8.5, rather than the 4.5 they actually are. However, DVOA refutes this. I like to use DVOA to determine whether or not that net points per drive based figure is valid because it takes into account strength of schedule and things like that. Miami ranks 18th, while Buffalo ranks 22nd, which is a much smaller gap. That gap is even smaller still in weighted DVOA, which weights more recent games more heavily, as Buffalo ranks 22nd and Miami ranks 20th. This is because, huge loss last week aside, the Bills have been playing some decent football lately compared to the Dolphins. Last week’...