A little perspective on Vegas’ win/loss predictions for the Miami Dolphins

By Hugo Guzman  |   Tuesday, July 28, 2009  |  Comments( 0 )

Miami Dolphins
Got something to say?

Sign Up and be the first to comment on this article!

I recently came across an article by the Sun Sentinel's Ethan Skolnick. In it, he asserted that the current win/loss projections coming out of Las Vegas - Skolnick stated that the Miami Dolphins are expected to win seven games - could be a source of motivation for the squad. I have a lot of respect for Skolnick, and he's one of the few local columnists whose content I look forward to reading, but in this particular instance, I think that he's missed the mark a bit.

So I'm going to try and put the current Vegas projection into more proper perspective:
No. 1 - a lot of sports books have the Dolphins pegged for 7.5 wins, not 7. That might not sound like much, but it essentially means that most handicappers expect Miami to post a non-losing record in 2010.

No. 2 - 17 of 32 NFL teams are slotted for between 7-9 wins. In a parity-ridden NFL, Vegas handicappers have been forced to group a relatively larger portion of the league into this "middle of the pack" cluster. Miami falls right into this grouping, which means that even Vegas insiders will admit that just a handful of breaks could easily catapult Miami to double-digit wins.

No. 3 - The Arizona Cardinals are slotted at 8.5 wins. If a team that came one miraculous reception away from winning the Super Bowl is expected to win just one more game than the Dolphins, it's hard to put a lot of stock in these odds.

No. 4 - NFL odds (such as win/loss) are not basely solely on X's and O's; bettor sentiment is taken into account as well. In other words, the numbers move based on where bets are placed, meaning that one of the reasons why Miami's projected win total is so low is because a lot of (likely clueless) gamblers are betting on the Dolphins to win 7 games or less (not because of any particular on-field factor).

If I had to guess, Dolphins coaches and players put little to no stock in NFL win/loss odds - especially ones that are released prior to the start of training camp. They are trained to take things one game at a time. And that's exactly what I'm going to do. No sense in worrying about what Vegas thinks about Miami's chances in games that are still months away from being played.
Got something to say?

Sign Up and be the first to comment on this article! (0)

About Hugo Guzman

Co-founder of RealFootball365.com. Born in Argentina, of Dominican descent, living in Hoboken, but from Miami through and ...
read more
Article Tools Share!   |  RSS  |  Bleacher Report About Bleacher Report