A very simple way to get to 7.5. Miami went 7-2 in gam s decided by 7 points or fewer and went 10-6. Historically teams tend to 50-50 in 0-7 point games. Therefore Miami goes 7.5 wins if they split those games evenly, so the Vegas line is essentially no chage from last year. No big gains or losses on personnel to cause expectafions to change.
I feel like you are calling our wins luck but the teams that beat us weren't lucky. It doesn't really make sense. We were a legitimate team last year.
See: http://dailydolphin.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2016/05/18/dolphins-overunder-win-totals-for-2016-season/ "Bovada, the offshore betting company, has Miami’s over/under at 7 wins."
I'm calling our schedule lucky, most teams we played last year were worse than expected, so we had a very easy schedule, as you pointed out earlier, so I wouldn't expect lightning to strike twice so quickly is all I'm saying.
I didn't point out our schedule was lucky, I pointed out that we shouldn't freak out about a schedule ahead of time. There was no luck. We beat the teams we beat as we were supposed to, except the Browns. Many of the losses "we were supposed to have" were only considered that because of the schedule. We didn't luck out against the Steelers, we beat the snot out of them. We should have beat the Seahawks and Pats, Weeks 1 & 2, they got lucky we didn't.
I bet online at www.sportsbook.ag On the left, go to NFL -> Season Futures -> Regular Season Wins. Here's a link: https://www.sportsbook.ag/sbk/sportsbook4/nfl-betting/season-futures-regular-season-wins.sbk Right now the odds are 10/13 for "over" on 7.5 for the Dolphins. This means if you bet $13 and win, you get your $13 back + $10. Anyway.. read any fine print before you bet at one of these sites (the ".ag" at the end means it's in Antigua and Barbuda so offshore) but I will testify that I have received checks from them when I wanted to cash out periodically. Incidentally, my football betting ability is mediocre haha! but baseball is another story.. stats really help tease apart what has marginally better predictive power than what the odds suggest. Predicting football (given the odds) is tough.
