Miami Dolphins at New York Giants Betting pick | 2011-10-30

NFL Football

2011-10-30 - Miami Dolphins at New York Giants

A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown

Miami Dolphins @ New York Giants
United States: NFL Football Week 8
Sunday 30 October 2011 - Kick Off 1pm ET
5pm (British Standard Time)

Preview

The New York Giants (4-2) come off their bye week and are still in control of the NFC East, and they will also know they may be able to extend the gap if they can beat the Miami Dolphins (0-6) and then see the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Dallas Cowboys in the late night game.

The Giants should be confident they can beat a team that is completely down in the dumps after somehow throwing away a 15-0 lead against Denver with 3 minutes left of the game last week. There has been plenty of accusations between team mates about who 'stinks' but this team is going nowhere fast and Tony Sparano must be as close to being fired as is possible without actually being fired.

New York have Brandon Jacobs back from injury and you have to think they will be able to get more success on the ground than they have in previous weeks against a Dolphins team that may be protecting themselves against the pass.

Vontae Davis does make the Miami Defense much better against the pass, but I am not sure he is at 100% and I think the receiving corps of Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham should all be able to create separation and earn their yards. Miami have struggled to get an effective pass rush going, so I do expect Eli Manning will get time to punish the Secondary.

The bye week has helped the Giants Defense get healthy too and that does not bode well for the Miami Offense. Justin Tuck has missed a few games with a neck injury but is going to be starting this week so I think their rushing Defense will be improved after the Giants have struggled with that for much of the season in Tuck's absence.

Miami will need Reggie Bush and Daniel Thomas to help keep the Offense in short and manageable situations if they are going to get anything going as a hobbled Matt Moore will not have a lot of success through the air. The Giants pass rush has been very effective this season and been getting to the QB easily enough, and I don't think they are going to have too many problems with this Miami Offensive Line that allows 3.5 sacks per game.

Moore is also hobbled, as I mentioned above, so that could mean any serious hits sees him exit the game and JP Losman come in and that does not exactly have the Dolphin fans rubbing their hands with glee.

Head to Head

These two teams last met in 2007 with the Giants coming away from Miami with a 3 point win, although the Dolphins had been set as 10 point underdogs in that game.

The Dolphins won in their last visit to the Giants, but this is their second visit to this Stadium this season as they have already lost to the Jets here a couple of weeks ago.

New York are 3-2-1 against the spread this season, Miami are 1-5.

Other Interesting Trends

New York are 4-10-1 against the spread in their last 15 games as the home favourite.

They are 1-10 against the spread in their last 11 games against a team with a losing record on the road and they are 3-7-1 against the spread in their last 11 games following a bye week.

The Giants are 17-24 against the spread in their last 41 games as the favourites of 6.5 points or more.

Miami are 1-4 against the spread in their last 5 games as the road underdog of between 3.5 and 10 points.

They are 2-12 against the spread in their last 14 games following a defeat by 6 points or less. The Dolphins are 3-9 against the spread in their last 12 games against NFC opponents.

Prediction

I am going to take the New York Giants to win this game for the following reasons, especially now the spread has come down:

First, the Giants should be a lot stronger against the run this week now Justin Tuck is back, and that means Matt Moore will have to deal with the amazing pass rush the Giants generate.

Second, the Giants have plenty of Offensive weapons and Eli Manning should have time in the pocket to find them.

Third, Miami have got to be so emotionally down after blowing the game against Denver last week in the manner they did. They are now busy blaming one another and just seem in disarray.

Fourth, Miami have Matt Moore and JP Losman holding the keys to this Offense.

The Statistics :

NEW YORK GIANTS LAST SIX HOME FORM
	DATE	RESULT		OPPOSITION
	2011-10-16	W	27-24	H v Buffalo Bills
	2011-10-09	L	25-36	H v Seattle Seahawks
	2011-09-19	W	28-16	H v St. Louis Rams
	2010-12-19	L	31-38	H v Philadelphia Eagles
	2010-12-05	W	31-7	H v Washington Redskins
	2010-11-28	W	24-20	H v Jacksonville Jaguars

MIAMI DOLPHINS LAST SIX AWAY FORM
	DATE	RESULT		OPPOSITION
	2011-10-17	L	24-6	A v New York Jets
	2011-10-02	L	26-16	A v San Diego Chargers
	2011-09-25	L	17-16	A v Cleveland Browns
	2011-01-02	L	38-7	A v New England Patriots
	2010-12-12	W	6-10	A v New York Jets
	2010-11-28	W	17-33	A v Oakland Raiders