Week 9 of the NFL 2025 season will begin with the Thursday Night Football which is all about the AFC this time around as the Miami Dolphins host the Baltimore Ravens to get things up and running at the Hard Rock Stadium.
Both teams go into the match really struggling for the season and might already be in the territory where they need to win out to be competitive over the course of the campaign. Only one of them will be able to be that after this so expect a competitive challenge.
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins wouldn’t have been expected to win the AFC East this season given the strength of the Buffalo Bills but they would have wanted to be much better than 2-6 for their year going into their halfway point of the campaign. That leaves them already in a position where if they don’t win this they will be thinking about how early they will be selecting in the draft next year. Even a win here will leave them plenty of work to do but with the short bye week after this they will have time to take stock and hopefully begin to work things out.
Injuries never seem to help the Dolphins and the one to Tyreeq Hill has certainly not been helpful but you wouldn’t necessarily say that their offense has been the problem. They have put up 20 points or more in six of their eight matches. The issue has been that their defence hasn’t been good at all. They were much better last week in restricting the Atlanta Falcons to just the 10 points and will be hoping that is a start of something good on that side of the ball.
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Baltimore Ravens
The Miami Dolphins might not have been expected to win their division at the beginning of the season but the Baltimore Ravens certainly would have been but from week one they haven’t really been at the races and in truth a 2-5 record is probably the best that they could have had as a return based on the performances that they have put in. Fortunately for them, the Pittsburgh Steelers have slowed up a bit so they aren’t away and gone but the Ravens need to get winning and quickly.
Baltimore clearly haven’t been helped by injuries either. Lamar Jackson is near enough an impossible man to replace when he is out injured and the offense has really struggled as a result of that. The more concerning thing for the Ravens might be that their defence has been ruined a few times this season. They conceded 41 in the opening week to the Buffalo Bills, 38 two weeks later to the Detroit Lions, 37 to Kansas City and 44 to the Houston Texans. They won’t go anywhere if they don’t sort themselves out defensively.
Betting
It is never easy to bet on matches between sides who are struggling and throw in the Thursday night crazy results nature to the contest as well and it certainly isn’t an easy one to get stuck into. You would imagine there would be a real lift for the Baltimore Ravens with Lamar Jackson back for this one but at the same time they are on the road on a short week and that is never a position I like to invest in. Baltimore are 7.5 point favourites though so the game state should be that at some point they get stuck into running the ball, which is generally their strength anyway.
That makes me think that the rushing yards for Derrick Henry is the way to go here. The line is 89.5 yards which on the face of it would look like a high line but when you delve deeper it isn’t that bad. The main headline is that Miami are the fifth worst run defence in the league and a number of running backs have already rushed for over 100 yards on them. The other thing is the return of Jackson is going to cause a dual threat in the running game although I would expect the quarterback to be eased back in. The third thing is that on a short week tackling Derrick Henry is going to get tougher the longer the game goes on so I would expect him to bust a big run at some point. If Baltimore are up on the road they are likely to manage the clock through the run and that should lead to their elite running back going for 90 yards and beyond.
Tips
Back D.Henry – Over 89.5 rushing yards for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with Spreadex
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