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Inside the Lines team

The SportsLine Projection Model was developed and powered by the Inside the Lines team. You can visit SportsLine for our model's main market bets (spread, total, money line) but if you are looking for ALL our personal best bets for free, check out our recently launched Inside the Lines blog. These are just a fraction of our best bets, which are all free on our new blog. 

We will be providing our team's personal best bets for every NFL game during the 2025 season. We are coming off of a 23-13 +7.5 unit Week 3 in the NFL.

Here are our picks for Monday Night Football, New York Jets at Miami Dolphins.

Miami Dolphins -2.5 (-120 Fanatics)

It's worth it to me to pay -120 for -2.5 over -107 to cover -3. In sims, our projected score for the Jets is identical to their odds implied total of just over 21 points. The key for Miami to cover is their scoring 24+ points.

The lookahead line had Miami -5.5 and an implied team total over 25 points. That's a high opinion that oddsmakers had for the Dolphins considering most thought the Jets were an elite defense. Miami's offense has had good moments after the Colts debacle. They had 315 passing yards vs New England and averaged 5.2 yards per carry for 130 yards versus the Bills. They would have put up 27+ in back-to-back weeks if not for Tua's back breaking, puzzling interceptions.

Tua's early INTs per game is up around 80% versus his career, which is unsustainably high. He is due for a clean game. The Dolphins should also be able to run the ball with combo of speed (Achane) and power (rookie Ollie Gordon) vs a Jets defense that is mediocre in yards per carry allowed (4.1), but ends up allowing a high 121 yards per game last season and 133 currently this season. 

Miami's offense, if they avoid a horrific INT, has actually looked good for a couple weeks and the Jets' big named, high priced defense has not allowing 34, 30 and 29 points.

Tua Tagovailoa Over 1.5 Passing Touchdowns (-135 BetMGM)

Our 1.84 projected passing TDs would translate to a line closer to -160, so it's not a great value, but it is a solid lean and is correlated to our Miami ATS pick.  The Jets pass defense has allowed the 6th highest passer rating in the league this season. They spent a lot of money ($12 M avg annual salary) on Brandon Stephens who badly regressed especially in pass coverage for the Ravens from '23 to '24 and he's even worse based on PFF ranking so far with the Jets.

Stephens cannot stay with Tyreek Hill or Jaylen Waddle. If Darren Waller is able to make his Dolphins debut then that gives Tua another great receiving option which should make all of the difference in the world. Jonnu Smith had a monster year for the Dolphins last season and getting a replacement great receiving TE should make all the difference in the world.

Props Cheat Sheet

The table below was updated on 9/24 at around 10 am EST so the lines may not match what you see above. If you're not feeling the picks above these are the ones that have projection value vs the best line / price. The projected value is in [brackets] and the sportsbook with the best line is in (parantheses). The cover rate since the start of 2024 and the current season are displayed. Many lines have not posted yet so the current list of picks is pretty thin. Check back later in the week for a full update.

RUNNING BACKS
De`Von Achane [0.83] Yes Anytime TD -115, 53.5% (MGM) | Last 20: 12-8 | CS: 2-1
Ollie Gordon [0.47] Yes Anytime TD +295, 25.3% (FD) | Last 3: 1-2 | CS: 1-2

RECEIVERS
Nick Westbrook [0.16] Yes Anytime TD +700, 12.5% (MGM) | Last 15: 8-7 | CS: 0-2

What makes a bet an "Inside the Lines Best Bet?" 

These are ones where:

1) Best Projection: Our SportsLine Model's projection shows clear value versus the line and we love certain statistical trends, X's and O's and subjective supporting data that supports our side but isn't directly factored into the model. For example, say we love a running back to go Over 14.5 carries and his backup is projected for 5.5 carries, but the backup is questionable and there's a chance he can be ruled out, which surely will change our projection to 16.5 (third-stringer gets 3.5) and the line would likely go from 12.5 to 15.5. If we have value on a side and the only unknown factors that will change are in our favor, we'll consider it our "Best Projection."

AND

2) Best Price: There is an outlier best price that we should take advantage of before it steams in "our direction." In most of these cases, the best-priced book is using "standard odds making logic" to set the line, but our team has identified a unique situation where standard odds rules don't apply. For example, maybe a player is -110 to throw an interception, but in his last three seasons he has averaged just 0.4 interceptions on the road compared to 0.7 at home because the team plays on a fast track at home and averages 5+ more pass attempts at home.

Step 1 provides greater accuracy and Step 2, especially when combined with a nice Profit Boost or Promotion, significantly lowers the bar for being profitable ... which is why we like to feature our best line sportsbooks offer.