Patriots/Dolphins: Odds, weather, TV/radio, matchups, and other info

The New England Patriots can secure a first-round bye and clinch the No. 2 seed in the AFC with a win over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.

It’s certainly been a bit of an odd year for the New England Patriots.

More often than not over the past 20 years, the team has wrapped up the AFC East and their seeding in the AFC relatively early on in the regular season.

That’s the benefit of employing the greatest head coach and quarterback combination the NFL has ever seen – while other teams duke it out well past Christmas to punch their postseason ticket, Patriots fans often get their playoff gifts delivered early to them by a formidable football team.

For several reasons though, that just hasn’t been the case in 2019.

New England was actually the last of the four division winners in the conference to beat out their rivals in the division and clinch the first-place finish. Whereas the Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs, and Houston Texans had each captured the AFC North, AFC West, and AFC South by Week 15, the Patriots didn’t win the AFC East until Week 16… just four days before Christmas.

Part of that is due to the surprising record of the surging Buffalo Bills. While the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins played their usual roles as patsies to the Patriots this season, the Bills proved a worthy adversary in both matchups against New England. At 10-5, Buffalo has clinched the No. 5 seed in the AFC, and could present a difficult challenge to any playoff squad during Wild Card Weekend.

The other unusual component of New England’s season is that they still have plenty to play for in Week 17. While the Patriots have had the luxury of resting their starters many years during the final week of the regular season because their playoff spot is locked in, this year is different.

New England needs a win against the Dolphins in Foxborough this Sunday to stave off the Kansas City Chiefs, who beat the Patriots head-to-head in Week 14, and who would win the tiebreaker if both teams finished the year 12-4.

The Patriots can also assure themselves a better finish than the Chiefs even if they somehow inexplicably lose to the Dolphins at home on Sunday, but to do so, they’ll need to hope the Chiefs fall at home to the 5-10 Los Angeles Chargers to fall to 11-5 on the year.

That’s not a likely outcome, especially considering the Chargers have nothing more than pride to play for.

It’s important to note that the Patriots/Dolphins and Chiefs/Chargers games are also occurring at the same time on Sunday, so neither New England nor Kansas City can sit back and watch the scoreboard of the other game ahead of time. Presumably though, if Patriots staffers get word that the Chiefs are in a hole against the Chargers late – or vice versa – it could affect the coaching strategies of either team with regards to injury maintenance, starter reps, etc.

But let’s dive into the Patriots’ matchup as it stands specifically this week with the visiting Dolphins.

Many years it’s Miami who presents the greatest obstacle within the AFC East to New England, but that hasn’t been the case in one meeting between these teams this season.

Brian Flores, the ex-defensive coach for the Pats, left during the offseason to become the head coach down in South Beach, and while he’s done an impressive job with what he’s had to work with (and it hasn’t been a lot), the Patriots drilled the Dolphins down at Hard Rock Stadium in Week 2 of this season, 43-0.

That game was notable for several reasons. First off, the Patriots have tended to struggle down in Florida when they’ve played the Dolphins, but they had no such problems this year. That was also the only game that Antonio Brown ended up playing this season for New England (or for anyone), and he had a touchdown reception from Tom Brady. The game also saw two late defensive touchdowns from the Patriots as well.

This matchup could be similarly one-sided. Ryan Fitzpatrick, the veteran journeyman quarterback of the Dolphins, has been playing well this season, but he doesn’t have a whole lot of talent around him.

By far and away his best weapon has been wide receiver DeVante Parker, the 2015 first-round draft pick who finally has lived up to his pre-draft hype and billing as a true No. 1 receiver. Parker has set career highs for himself across the board, and enters this game with over 100 receptions and 1,000 receiving yards on the season – as well as a brand-new, four-year, $40 million contract extension signed just this month.

Expect Stephon Gilmore to shadow Parker all afternoon as the Patriots’ top corner seeks to improve his standing as the league’s frontrunner for the Defensive Player of the Year award.

Unfortunately for New England, two of the Patriots’ top other cornerbacks are questionable for this game with groin injuries – Jason McCourty and Jonathan Jones. If one or neither can play, expect to see a lot more snaps to second-year man J.C. Jackson, as well as more featured roles for safeties Devin McCourty, Duron Harmon, and Patrick Chung.

The good news for the Patriots is that even with several members of their secondary ailing, the Dolphins don’t have a whole lot of firepower in their pass-catching corps beyond Parker.

Albert Wilson has failed to make much of an impact after coming over from the Chiefs, Allen Hurns is questionable for this game with two different injuries, and the Fins’ tight end Mike Gesicki has failed to make much of a second-year leap with the team that drafted him No. 42 overall last year.

If you can’t name a single Dolphins running back, you’re not alone. Kalen Ballage is on IR and Kenyan Drake got shipped off to Arizona. The remaining players on this roster aren’t worth discussing against this top-notch Patriots run defense.

Here’s all the info you need to take in this week’s game:

Date: Sunday, December 29, 2019
Kickoff time: 1:00 pm EST
Location: Foxborough, Massachusetts
Stadium: Gillette Stadium
TV channel: CBS
Radio: TuneIn
Live stream: fuboTV (try for free)
Betting odds: New England -16 (Over/Under: 44.5), courtesy of The Action Network
Weather updates: 40 degrees F; partly cloudy; 0% chance of precipitation

The gameplan for the Patriots this week should involve doing everything in their power to rush out to a big lead, then resting their starters and letting their backups get some valuable reps against the Dolphins for as long as they can.

Not only would this present the second and third-stringers with some valuable real-life playing time against an NFL opponent – it would also give guys like Julian Edelman, Tom Brady, Jamie Collins, and New England’s banged-up secondary members more time to rest before the Division round of the playoffs.