NFL Week 6 Odds Analysis: Dolphins, Coaching Changes, Betting History

The Miami Dolphins (1-3) have underachieved so much early this season that they became the first NFL team to fire a head coach in 2015, letting Joe Philbin go after the Dolphins' latest loss in London to the New York Jets, 27-14, before their bye week.

The Dolphins have also failed to cover the spread in their last three games since kicking off the year with a 17-10 victory over the Washington Redskins as four-point road favorites.

The question is, how have teams performed in the subsequent game following the dismissal of a head coach during the season?

According to the OddsShark NFL Database, not well dating back to 2000, when four coaches were fired, with a 7-17 record straight up and 9-15 mark against the spread. That year, the Redskins, Detroit Lions, Arizona Cardinals and Cincinnati Bengals combined to go 1-3 SU and 0-4 ATS.

However, teams that fired a head coach during the season have done much better recently—at least versus the line—going 7-3 ATS and 5-5 SU in the past 10 games under that scenario.

The most recent head coach to get canned during the season before Philbin was Dennis Allen of the Oakland Raiders last year, and he was replaced by Tony Sparano, who was fired by Miami in 2011.

In both situations, the Raiders and Dolphins covered the spread in their following games, with Miami even beating the Buffalo Bills 30-23 as one-point road favorites under interim coach Todd Bowles, who ended up going 3-0 ATS in the last three games.

Bowles later served as defensive coordinator of the Arizona Cardinals under two-time NFL Coach of the Year Bruce Arians before becoming head coach of the Jets in 2015.

New Dolphins head coach Dan Campbell has no previous head coaching experience and will be leading them into Nashville this Sunday against the Tennessee Titans (1-3). The latest NFL betting odds on Odds Shark have Miami as a consensus 2.5-point road underdog, while Tennessee is coming off a 14-13 home loss to Buffalo last week following its bye.

The Titans have dropped 13 of their last 14 games going back to last season, while the Dolphins failed to cover eight of their previous nine under Philbin. Tennessee is also just 2-13-1 ATS in its past 16 home games, and Miami has covered three of the last four meetings as road underdogs and won eight of the previous 12 overall.