A highlight from Monday Night Football Week 8: Bengals at Browns Picks, Predictions, Odds, Injuries

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Win 27 7. So he may as well just hand it to him already. Send Lombardi trophy to western New York. For Monday morning as we always do we'll kick things off with the good the bad, the ugly. We'll get to a couple look ahead lines, although there weren't major market adjustments around key numbers. A little injury update from our man D PAC and of course an in depth breakdown of a showdown in the AFC north tonight between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns. But pain. I'm looking forward to that. I think it should be a lot more compelling than what it looks like on the surface. Let's put it that way. Although the way it's being bet from the people I've spoken to around town, they may as well not play the football game because the bangles win this going away. But we'll get to that at the end of the show. Good the bad and the ugly, always where we like to start things on a Monday morning and I'm going to give you first honors. I appreciate that. First off, the tea box. Let's go with maybe some low hanging fruit here because I watched this game. It's close to me. We bet the first half over. Let's go with tua and the dolphins offense. And I know you think another part of that game was vital and caught your attention. But let's start with the offense there. And you look at the metrics, right? I get that the lion's defense isn't any good. But you think about the dolphins organization and past years. They've just never had the offense to catch up, you know? Not a lot of imagination or creativity or just any ability to really battle back from being down double digits multiple times. And you look at the importance of that game. Miami is either going to push to 5 and three or they're going to falter to 500. I really thought that was a game offensive performance from them and chase mode. Final three quarters to a had a positive 0.66 EPA per drop back. So basically any time tool would drop back to throw. Those passes were almost yielding .7 points each time and to this point to a number one in EPA plus completion percentage above expectation for 8 weeks for week 8 rather. The one thing that's interesting here before we discuss the other side of the ball. I would like Mike mcdaniel to come out with the pedal to the floor. If you noticed Miami is a little quirky offensively. Unless they're really being pushed, McDaniels is kind of willing to settle in and run and play a little bit more controlled. We obviously know he's a former run game coordinator. I think there's also this element of trying to protect tua that's layered in there. But you have to start the game with the governor off build some leads because you're not always going to be able to play the lines and catch up from double digits. That's the one thing that's a little bit annoying there about Miami, but ultimately playing catch up the offense came alive. They did some of that on the opening drive on Saturday night football, the week before against the Steelers. I mean, it was the most creative opening drive. They go right down the field, get 7, and you're thinking to yourself watching that game and I know we're talking about obviously yesterday's game against the Lions. Miami is going to be able to do what they want when they want against the Steelers defense. Fast forward to what the eagles did in the first half. And you begin to go, okay, why doesn't Miami do that? And to your point, again, yesterday, they didn't really get outside of the box until they found themselves in that double digit deficit. One that was largely dug by a defense that looked like they didn't start the game until halftime. And that's actually the group that I wanted to highlight for Miami's 31 27 win and interesting result for sportsbooks with that game falling for knowing that the public and professionals actually got out there laid the three and three and a half. What did you see schematically that Miami did differently in the second half? I know they were only out there for three drives for Detroit, but they were able to force two punts, something that they couldn't do through the first 30 minutes of that football game. It's always the interesting dynamic and why there's some variance in these games because you would think if the dolphins can get a little pressure on golf, that's the element, but if golf has time, he's going to be able to pick a part of secondary that's a little beaten and battered. It's basically Xavier and Howard and javon Holland, the dolphins are down starting safety is starting corner and starting slot corner. And that ultimately was the game within the game. If you can get pressure before golf can get an open receiver, you're going to have a chance there. Ultimately, that's what unfolded they stopped the run a little bit better in the second half as well. And the offense maintained possession. Well, while scoring some points. Yeah, I mean, I think you hit on the key point there. And we talked about it, I want to say a couple of years ago with the Dallas Cowboys when they were rebuilding their defense. The only way that the defense is numbers were going to look better was with the offense putting together long sustained drives, keeping them rested. And if they were out there a ton, it was going to show up on the scoreboard. So a good second half from the Miami Dolphins to your point, they get to 5 and three in the division. One that looks significantly more competitive on paper now than we probably would have anticipated early in the season. I want to go to the AFC south and it's a team that we've picked apart for the last couple of years, one that I've been overly critical of it. And I think rightfully so they now find themselves in first place, and that was the Tennessee Titans. Look, they didn't do anything pain to reinvent the wheel. They didn't put Malik Willis in positions where he could cost them the game. But the Houston Texans knew what was coming, still couldn't stop it. I mean, Derek Henry puts the entire team on his back yet again. 32 carries 219 yards for a pair of scores. It's now four straight games of a hundred plus. He's carrying a 22 times. We keep talking about when the tread on the tire is going to wear off and Derek Henry is going to fall off a cliff. This guy only gets better, the more touches he gets. And what it allowed the Tennessee Titans to do is to protect that defense as well. They got off the field on third down, held the Texans to two of 14, and they held the Texans to a 161 yards of offense or 3.2 yards per play. Look, I'm not going to call the Titans a Super Bowl contender by any stretch of the imagination. It's going to piss everybody off in the volunteer state and in the city of Nashville, but they went out there, they executed a game plan. And Mike vrabel, to his credit, at least knows the strength and weaknesses of this football team. Well, they're not. So I don't think any reasonable fan would think this is a Super Bowl contender. And now kudos to Derek Henry, the guy had a 190 yards after first contact. The Texans got steamed part of it was the quarterback change.

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