Thursday Night Football Picks: Miami Dolphins vs Buffalo Bills

by Mike Allen - 9/16/2025

The first two weeks of the 2025 NFL regular season have been quite interesting. There haven't been many surprises yet, other than the extent to which some teams can struggle. On Thursday Night Football this week, the mopey, dopey Miami Dolphins make their way up to Orchard Park, New York, in an "attempt" to take one from the AFC East-leading Bills.

There have been teams that've looked bad, but at least played the entire game with heart, like the New Orleans Saints or Tennessee Titans. It's becoming increasingly apparent, as the weeks pass, that the Miami Dolphins players have checked out on head coach Mike McDaniel.

I wouldn’t look for them to play very inspired football until a change is made. The injuries to quarterback Tua Tagovailoa have been devastating. So, I don’t want to put it all on McDaniel, but that guy is a mess, and he may be the first head coach in the NFL to be fired this season.

McDaniel is currently the betting favorite at (+150). I might jump on that, honestly.

I read some recent quotes from McDaniel to try to get an idea of where his head’s at, and the Yale grad has me scratching mine. His meaningless concoction of words are only there because either he can’t or he doesn’t want to answer the question that was asked. His words remind me of another Yale alum, George W. Bush.

His team has been outscored by a total of 31 points over the first two games of the season, while the Bills are +21 against their opponents. We are playing in Buffalo. This game could eventually become known as the nail in the coffin game for McDaniel’s head coaching debacle with the Dolphins.

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Miami Dolphins (+12.5) at Buffalo Bills (-12.5)

There’s good reason why Buffalo comes into this divisional matchup with Miami as nearly two-touchdown betting favorites. The lookahead line was (-9.5). I love those. It wasn’t hard to predict the Bills beating up on the Jets this past Sunday or Miami struggling once more.

The (9.5), unfortunately, is long gone, and we may even see (-14) by gametime on Thursday night.

Virtually all of both the tickets and the money have come in on Buffalo. It would be fun to see a competitive game in that standalone spot, but all signs point to a whoopin’.

Point Total: 49.5

We opened up with a point total of 48.5, and this quickly got bet up past the key number of 49 to 49.5. There hasn’t been any buyback, though, to this point, with more than 90% of the money and tickets going toward the over.

Moneyline Odds

Dolphins: +480

Bills: -700

Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills Betting Analysis

Are we going to try to make the case for a Dolphin upset? No, but those are a lot of points. I just can’t get behind that organization right now. I believe the locker room is done with their head coach, and whenever this happens, we fade and fade until they replace him.

Then, we bet them to cover as dogs in their first game with the new head coach. As for this Thursday's mismatch, the Dolphins won't have an answer for Josh Allen through the air. They've given up 10 and 9.4 yards per pass against their first two opposing quarterbacks, Daniel Jones and Drake Maye.

The Bills beat the Dolphins 31-10 last year, and Allen only threw for 130. How could we pay juice for him to go over 233 yards passing?

Miami threw the ball effectively last week against the Pats, but they haven’t been able to run the ball in either of their first two contests. I thought about playing Allen to go over 28.5 rushing yards. That sounds easy, but he had 5 total yards on the ground against the Dolphins last year. He just doesn’t run against them for some reason.

I'll take the Bills team total at 28.5 points. They went over this number in both meetings with Miami last season. Buffalo should be able to have their way through the air, and I wouldn't put it past the Dolphins to quit before the end of the 3rd quarter.

Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills Betting Pick

Pick: Buffalo Bills Over Their Team Total of 28.5 Points

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Start:	September 16, 2025 @ 10:10 PM
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Thursday Night Football Picks: Miami Dolphins vs Buffalo Bills

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