TNF Showdown: Bills vs. Dolphins - Will Miami Break Buffalo's Dominance? | GSMC Sports Podcast

we're starting off the show here on Thursday afternoon by of course discussing tonight's matchup a divisional game for Thursday Night Football between the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills as things currently stand the Dolphins are two and a half Point favorites despite the fact that recent history has led to the bills coming out on top in these games Tua just one and six versus the bills throughout his young career so far Josh Allen only two losses against the Dolphins since he took over in Buffalo so again recent history would show that this is a game that has the bills written all over it but of course the bills especially going through a lot of overturn this past off season that has led to some drastic changes on the roster where offensively he is without his top two Targets from last year in Gabe Davis and Stefan Diggs defensively they have a lot of members of the secondary to replace so very different Bills team this upcoming season and this feels like an opportunity early in the year before the bills have really found their groove at home in Miami that this is the opportunity that the Dolphins sort of have to capitalize on and in order for them to do so the number one question would be can the Dolphins actually limit Josh Allen where Allen versus the Dolphins these past couple Seasons since the beginning of the 2022 season he's played five games four of them regular season plus one playoff game in 2022 he is throwing for 347 yards per game 15 touchdowns and five interceptions with another rushing touchdown in there as well 32 rush yards per game does have four fumbles lost during this time which I just found to be interesting but you know we already know that he is a reckless quarterback that's been his identity since coming into the league but he's also a lethal talent that has been able to carve up this Miami Dolphins defense in their last handful of matchups like I mentioned those five games the bills are averaging 29.6 points per game like I mentioned though the difference this year is that Josh Allen is without his top his top couple weapons that he's had in recent years in Diggs and Gabe Davis and there really isn't a clearcut wide receiver one for him to be able to rely on I thought that he was excellent in week one against the Arizona Cardinals he himself was responsible for four touchdowns two of them in the air two of them on the ground but you know especially when it came to the Red Zone it felt very joshh Allen Reliant to create things on his own and we saw him keeping it for himself he finished this game with I believe nine carries and had two of those rushing touchdowns of course did injure his wrist it appeared on one of those rushing touchdowns which is why I don't think that Allen is going to be able to lean on his legs quite as heavily as he did in week one that it's just not really a sustainable form of offense throughout a 17g game season he is too vital he needs to avoid taking those types of hits it was great they were able to pull off the comeback win last week but I would expect that the bills are hoping that they can establish the Run game even more so James Cook did look good in week one so it's not it's not that it's just a matter of especially when it got to the Red Zone those drives were a sort of stalling if not for for Josh Allen becoming a a superhero at certain points and scrambling around there that that's where I think the loss of sort of a go-to Target kicks in now I would definitely be interested in Keon Coleman who did receive the most amount of targets for the bills in game one with five that he could really start to emerge as a Red Zone presence for this Bills team additionally I'm a big fan of their tight ends and Dawson Knox and Dalton concade so those are two players that I could see emerging for the Bills moving forward here but you know all of that being said it's clear that Josh Allen as he's still sort of figuring out his Groove in this new look offense that he needs to start developing some trust with his receivers and he doesn't quite seem to be there just yet so for the Dolphins on the other side of this they need to take away the running Lanes from Josh Allen because like I mentioned there were no wide receivers for the bills last week or no players in general that had more than four catches Keon Coleman did hit that note nine different players caught a pass from Josh Allen which is a good thing because ultimately seemed like you know there was all of this conversation of oh well what's Josh Allen going to look like without Stefan Diggs I thought that Allen looked better last year when he was spreading the ball around more and ultimately he showed that he was capable of doing that last week now it is against a Cardinals defense that I don't think is particularly great you come in and you're playing a much more talented Miami Dolphins defense with both you know players in the secondary plus having that extra push from the front line that the Cardinals are definitely a step below what the Dolphins are hoping to pitch this upcoming weekend and I think that you know with new defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver for the Miami Dolphins they did a really good job in week one against the Jaguars they Jacksonville only totaled 267 yards Trevor Lawrence in the second half was really taken out of the game and what mightily helped the Dolphins in that matchup was the fact that they were able to get a lot of production from that defensive front three sacks one of them from the new addition in Kus Campbell who isn't just sort of hanging on to the league but is still giving you some sort of results as well Mak a nice debut for himself in Miami we'll see you know whether or not he can continue to build on that and then Jaylen Phillips also was you know coming back from injury after being out from November on last year and he was able to get home for a sack as well so you can find production I think specifically on that defensive line and in the secondary linebacking core is fine I wouldn't say it's great though and that is definitely an area that I'm looking at those linebackers they're going to have to do a good job of sort of keeping Josh Allen sort of contained to some degree not giving him those wide open Open Spaces in the middle of the field for him to scramble out and run through that they are going to be the key to Miami's defense in this game against Josh Allen now on the other side of the ball offensively I think the Dolphins should be able to pretty easily move the ball against the bills like I mentioned they the bills are undergoing a lot of turnover from last season in the secondary losing a number of their starters from last year by choice I might add so you know the bills feel like maybe they have some players coming up the pipeline who could emerge for them but that being said it's still early in the season and I do think that even if that does become the case it's going to take some time for Buffalo to really gel in that secondary add to that the fact that star linebacker Matt Milano is dealing with a torn PEC that is going to keep him out until around December this is a defense that is very vulnerable right now and that's where of course a Mike McDaniel LED offense for the Miami Dolphins feels like they should be able to Feast there but my biggest question with the dolphins offense is what sort of other layers are they going to be able to add to it I thought that I was pretty impressed with a few standout plays from Tua vioa in week won against the Jaguars of getting outside of the pocket showing off a little bit more Mobility which was a could be a massive step for his player progression something that I don't know if I necessarily fully ruled it out of him but given some of the injuries that he's had throughout the course of his career even going back to his time at Alabama I was a little bit worried that that was just something that we were never going to see from him but working through progressions more I mean he played excellently in the system that Mike McDaniel has that requires just a lot of quick reads and quick decision making and he plays very well in that system but what does it look like when things are less structured for Tua I thought there were some promising signs last week and I know that Miami's offense did struggled at times against Jacksonville I actually do think the Jaguars have a very solid defense as well so I think that this is a little bit of a Get Right game for Miami's offense but that being said like I mentioned adding different elements this feels like a game to me where if this running offense for Miami is going to emerge this is a little bit of an opportunity to do so last week again definitely came out a little bit slower that offense as a whole Devon hn didn't necessarily have the impact that a lot of people were hoping oping for and wasn't yards per attempt were pretty down he did end up scoring at the goal line to at least for his Fantasy Football uh owners at least provide a little bit of confidence but the consistency of that run game really wasn't there for Miami last week and I think that ultimately again the Jaguars defense is tough but this is where the front the the strength of buffalo's defense is probably on that front line so I'm not saying they're entirely susceptible to getting ran over but I do think that this is a game where I don't really trust that linebacking core as things currently stand for Buffalo Terrell Bernard is a very solid linebacker but outside of that I think without Milano they are very short-handed and ultimately I'm a little bit skeptical about this that being said it's kind of hard to rule out Mike McDaniel ever in terms of the offensive innovator that he is that with all of the different ways that he's shown in ability to to innovate and use pre- snap motions and such to open up other opportunities that I think it's definitely on the table for the Dolphins to be able to add that to their repertoire but I'm I'm a little bit worried about it in this game but especially if they are able to control the line of scrimmage I think that we're going to be looking at things coming up Dolphins here so on that note getting into some predictions themselves looking at the betting lines for this game the Dolphins are 2 and 1 Half Point favorites and the over underline is 48 and2 I do sort of feel like that over underline and maybe I'm being baited into this a little bit but I feel like that's a pretty easy over I think a lot of points are going to be scored in this game now if either offense was going to let you down I kind of feel like it would be the bills but I do still just have faith in Josh Allen to be able to put up a good number of points but I don't think it's going to be enough points at least to keep up with what the Dolphins should be able to do to this bill's defense I have the Dolphins winning this game and I believe that they can absolutely cover the two and 1 half point spread that is currently AA ailable on ESPN bet so that is the direction I would go in this game is I I I like the Dolphins outright probably with the spread as well and then if I had a lean on the over underline I would I would say over but that being said it does feel a little bit traish to me so I myself am definitely going to be staying away from that but let me know what your thoughts are in the comments section as we are going to continue to talk about this game a little bit more from a fantasy football perspective and turn that into League wide as we head into week two I'm going to be giving a list of my favorite fantasy players for each position and what the expectations are for them as to whether or not they are going to be available we do have a comment here from uh the name sorry as I'm having a little bit of a technical difficulty here we have a question from Andre saying is aan playing Anan was listed on the injury report earlier in this week as he was dealing with an ankle injury I if we haven't gotten any official results as of the past hour so I do I I can't give you a definitive answer there Mike McDaniel said that quote we'll see how it plays out so we'll we'll have to see there but I ultimately I think he'll be available if not I know that Jeff Wilson Jr has been gaining a lot of traction at of the past few days if he's not available available to play and Jeff Wilson would probably be a decent uh spot start there if hn is unavailable and we're going to do we're going to go more in depth to the fantasy football updates but we'll address Andre's question here is would you take a shot on starting Keon Coleman in the flex tonight he also mentions he has Josh Allen as his quarterback so doubling up there I like Keon Coleman again top top Target leader for the bills in week one then again I really do think that as him and Josh Allen get on the same page I think that he's going to be an awesome Red Zone threat for the bills I would take a shot on it that being said and I'm I'm going to get into it more later I do think that khil Shakir is probably the receiver I would lean more so to based off of the fit of him playing against the slot in the slot I think that we saw Jaylen Ramsay last week following around the number one wide receivers for Jacksonville and Jaylen Ramsay had his hit or miss a little bit of a rough first half but was able to work his way into it but I think that Coleman is going to have much more difficult matchups Shakir is the one that I think he's gonna play in the slot I think he's gonna have opportunities against Miami's linebackers and could carve out a role for himself there but again we have a lot more to get into on the fantasy football front with both tonight's game and with the games upcoming for this weekend so if you have any fantasy football questions definitely be sure to drop them in the chat and we'll try and address as much as possible but we do have to take a quick break here and when we come come back on the other side I'll be talking about the biggest impact players in fantasy football for tonight's game and I'll be running through my top skill position players for the weekend in terms of fantasy football impact so do not go anywhere we will be right back after this quick break