At no point during the first 55 minutes of Monday night’s game between the Titans and Dolphins did it feel like Under 37.5 bettors were going to be at risk of losing. A game that started with Will Levis and Snoop Huntley trading dreadful turnovers finished the first half with a 9-3 score on four field goals, with neither offense ever really threatening the end zone.
The Titans offense did manage to find pay dirt in the third quarter, but even after things opened up and more field goals were traded, it was 22-6 with five minutes to play, giving the Under a pretty healthy cushion in a game that had only seen one touchdown all night. And then, disaster struck in the form of a scoring flurry. Huntley ran in Miami’s first touchdown of the game with 3:36 to play, and after a swift 3-and-out from the Titans took only a minute off the clock, Huntley threw the ball away in his own end zone on the first play of the ensuing drive for a safety, putting the score at 24-12, perilously close to the number.
However, things still should’ve been fine until the Dolphins opted for an onside kick from their own 20 on the safety kick and committed a penalty on the play because no one really understands the new onside kick rules, giving Tennessee the ball on the 10 with 2:27 to play. Anyone with the Under could do the math to know they couldn’t fully run out the clock, meaning pain was almost assuredly on the way.
After three runs only moved the ball six yards, there was hope when the Titans lined up to go for it on 4th and goal rather than kicking a field goal. Surely, they’d just run the ball one more time, providing hope that Miami could muster up one more stop. They could not.
Tony Pollard ices the game with a last minute TD. #TENvsMIA pic.twitter.com/DXpINtz03y
— NFL (@NFL) October 1, 2024
Tony Pollard bounced a run outside and no one from Miami could beat him to the pylon to prevent the second touchdown of the night for the Titans, pushing the game Over the total. Losing an under in a game where the two teams combined for 428 total yards of offense (and just 180 combined passing yards) is brutal. All you needed was a normal onside kick to get recovered by Tennessee to give them enough room to just get a first down and run out the clock. Instead, you got a Tony Pollard run in your eyehole to give you one more taste of defeat from Week 4.