The Miami Dolphins (7) will travel to take on the Buffalo Bills in the third Wild Card matchup of the weekend. While under normal circumstances, it would be difficult to make a Dolphins vs. Bills prediction because they are division rivals, and it’d be the third time they are playing this season, this one is different.
Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will miss this game because he has not advanced through concussion protocol. Backup QB Teddy Bridgewater will also miss the game due to a hand injury. So now, the Dolphins will turn to their third-string quarterback, Skylar Thompson.
Miami will have a lot stacked against them, but can they pull off the unthinkable in Buffalo? Let’s dive in and make our prediction for Wild Card Weekend.
Dolphins vs. Bills Prediction
| Team | Off EPA | Def EPA | Pass EPA | Pass D EPA | Net EPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miami Dolphins | 0.054 (7th) | 0.022 (24th) | 0.111 (8th) | 0.088 (26th) | 0.032 (9th) |
| Buffalo Bills | 0.111 (2nd) | -0.045 (7th) | 0.203 (2nd) | -0.005 (11th) | 0.156 (4th) |
This is one of a few games on the schedule where the health and availability of the starting quarterback will define everything. On Wednesday, the Dolphins ruled Tua Tagovailoa out for Sunday’s matchup against the Bills. Instead, Thompson will be the starting quarterback — with an outside chance that Teddy Bridgewater is recovered enough from a finger injury to play if needed.
With Tua under center in both previous matchups, the two teams have split their series 1-1, and the Bills are only +1 in point differential over the two games – but team performance is better predicted with whole-season play instead of two-game samples.
In games where Tagovailoa played but did not suffer a concussion or something superficially resembling a concussion and kept playing, Miami averaged 0.141 expected points per play, and Tagovailoa averaged 0.225 points per dropback.
That’s better than Buffalo averaged as a team, and more than Allen averaged per dropback and would rank second over the course of the season on both a team level and quarterback level.
But even after accounting for that, it would be a matchup of the second- and third-best offenses going up against the seventh-best and 24th-best defenses. It makes sense that even after accounting for the factors that put Tagovailoa in his best possible circumstances that the Bills would be favored. Without Tagovailoa, the Bills are heavily favored.
The Bills’ defense is well-designed to go after an offense like Miami’s. Miami feasts on broken plays and the coverage holes created by blitzes. They relentlessly attack man coverage and make sure that Tyreek Hill or Jaylen Waddle exploit one-on-one mismatches.
The Bills blitz at the sixth-lowest rate in the league and don’t break their coverages too often. They’re primarily a two-high coverage team that mixes man and zone looks but generally protects their corners with safety help over top.
On the other side, Josh Allen sees virtually no difference between two-high looks and one-high looks. Instead, his most interesting splits come on blitzes.
His net yards per attempt on no-blitz looks is 7.86 percent, while on blitzed dropbacks is just 5.53. His EPA per dropback falls from 0.27 to -0.06. His sack rates, first-down rates, touchdown rate, and interception rates are all similar across the splits, he just has difficulty completing passes and moving the ball downfield.
If Tagovailoa would have played, this would likely be a close contest decided marginally in the Bills’ favor because of their better defense. But without Tagovailoa — and with Thompson — this won’t be close.
Bridgewater and Thompson have a low rate of big-time throws, a high rate of turnover-worthy plays, low EPA per dropback, and limited capacity to push the ball down the field or to the sideline.
Mike McDaniel will design an offense meant to generate yards after the catch, but the Bills have been good at closing down those kinds of offenses all year. The Bills should win through a combination of pressure in the pocket and some efficient play from Allen.
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