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Sports Interaction betting analyst Frank Doyle looks at the Miami Dolphins' prospects for the coming season including betting odds for the 2009/2010 NFL season. Gambling911.com is happy to provide this 2009/2010 Season Preview of the Miami Dolphins courtesy of the folks from Canada's first online sportsbook, Sports Interaction (licensed in Canada since 1999, established 1997).
When does revolution become evolution? When does a gimmick play stop being a gimmick and become a legitimate part of football? More than twenty years ago, the Chicago Bears used a defensive tackle, William Perry, as a half-back in short yardage situations. It was a one-year wonder, and never caught on across the league. Tom Landry brought the shotgun formation into pro football in the 1970s and it's been with us since.
The wildcat formation helped bring Miami eleven wins last season, exactly eleven times more than the Dolphins had the season before, and by the end of the year it seemed like every team in the NFL had tried the wildcat at least once. But Miami live or die by the wildcat. It gives the Dolphins their edge, and any consideration of the Dolphins' hopes for next year begin with it.
The first thing that seems clear is that the Dolphins themselves think the wildcat is here to stay, as evidenced by the Dolphins' drafting of West Virginia's Pat White. Pat White has the ideal skills to run the wildcat, and these wildcat skills would appear to the be chief reason Miami drafted him. White lacks NFL size at six feet, 200 pounds, but he can run and pass and quickly decide which is the better option - a quarterback's brain is always more important than his arm. Pat White wearing aqua marine would indicate we'll be seeing a lot of the wildcat in Miami this year.
Sports Interaction has set the over/under on Miami's total wins betting odds for the season at seven games, and the over looks a good bet to me. For Miami to only win seven games would indicate considerable slippage from last year, and there is no evidence that's going to happen. Bill Parcells is calling the shots in Miami now, and Parcells would not like to see regression in Year Two.
The other advantage that Miami enjoys is that two of its divisional opponents, the Bills and the Jets, look like teams that are going to struggle, and that can only be to Miami's advantage. Despite this, Sports Interaction has priced Miami at +800 to retain its AFC East title, and that seems an usually big price on a two horse race.
The reason Miami's 2009/2010 betting odds are so long is because the New England Patriots' odds to win the AFC East are so very short - the Patriots were the first team in twenty years not to make the playoffs with an 11-5 record and they will have Tom Brady back under center after a year on the DL. The Patriots will be very eager to make up for lost time, and the public thinks New England will do just that.
Players are betting the Patriots heavily to move the price as low as -455 with Sports Interaction but there is a risk in that nobody knows what Tom Brady will be like when he returns, and we won't know for sure until we see Brady in actual game conditions. Athletes don't just shrug off year-long injuries - the break could cost Brady a split-second and split seconds can be the difference between winners and bums in the National Football League. Betting Miami for the Super Bowl at the +4000 offered by Sports Interaction may be for diehard fans only, but +800 for the Dolphins to retain the AFC East seems a very solid.
When joining Sports Interaction be sure to ask about their free cash bonus. Sports Interaction was the first online sportsbook to be licensed in Canada.
Frank Doyle, Gambling911.com
