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Green Bay vs. Miami Prediction: Surging Packers, Scuffling Dolphins Meet on Christmas
Our NFL experts predict, pick and preview the Green Bay Packers vs. Miami Dolphins game with kickoff time, TV channel and spread.
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Green Bay vs. Miami: Surging Packers, Scuffling Dolphins Meet on Christmas
The Miami Dolphins return home from a winless three-game road trip to welcome the Green Bay Packers, who head south to escape the cold in hopes of winning their third game in a row. That win would be a very gratifying way for Green Bay to cap off its final road game of 2022, with Lambeau Field playing host to both of the Packers’ final two regular-season matchups.The last several weeks have seen very similar trends for both the Packers (6-8) and Dolphins (8-6), only with those recent stretches coming in opposite directions. Beginning in Week 5, Green Bay lost five in a row and seven of eight — with all but one of those seven losses coming by 10 or fewer points — before winning their last two matchups against the Bears and Rams.
Shortly after the time of that plummet by the Packers, the Dolphins started in a reverse path: winning five straight going into Thanksgiving but losing their last three — all of which have been away from Hard Rock Stadium. Besides the benefit of coming back to the (relative) warmth of South Florida — "relative" seeing as Miami will, surprisingly, *only* be in the mid-50s on Sunday — the results of that recent road stretch make the return home a very welcome Christmas gift for the Dolphins as Mike McDaniel's squad approaches the final weeks of the regular season.
Green Bay (6-8) at Miami (8-6)
Kickoff: Sunday, Dec. 25, at 1 p.m. ET
TV: FOX
Live Stream: fuboTV (Start your free trial)
Spread: Dolphins -4
Tickets: As low as $155 on SITickets.com*
Three Things to Watch
1. Which version of Christian Watson will we see on Sunday?
With the departure of many of Aaron Rodgers’ most familiar targets from recent years, the first few weeks of this season were largely spent figuring out who would be his go-to receiver going forward. And that effort coincided with Watson beginning to carve out a role for himself as a rookie. In Watson’s first six games with Green Bay, the North Dakota State product caught 10 passes for just 88 yards and was held out of the end zone in the passing game, though he did have a rushing touchdown in the Week 4 win against the Patriots.
The key turning point in Watson’s rookie campaign was Green Bay’s Week 10 overtime win against Dallas, when Watson was the recipient of all three of Rodgers’ touchdown passes, leading the way with four receptions for 107 yards. Starting with that performance, Watson has truly turned the tables in a positive direction. Over the last five games, he has hauled in 19 receptions for 359 yards and seven touchdowns, along with another rushing score on a 46-yard carry in the Week 13 win at Chicago. Watson has only led the team in yards twice in that span, so it will be interesting to see how he fares against a Miami defense that has allowed 292 passing yards per game through the air in the last three — the second-highest mark in the NFL during that span — but has been much stronger at home. The Dolphins are giving up just under 223 passing yards per game inside Hard Rock Stadium this season.
2. Can the Dolphins start fast, or will they once again be trailing heading into halftime?
While fast and slow starts are typically reasonable indicators of how a team will perform for the balance of the game, the first 30 minutes have been especially vital for Miami in the last two months. During the Dolphins’ five-game winning streak, Miami went into halftime with a lead in four of the five games. But in the last three games — all losses, remember — the Dolphins trailed after two quarters in all three.
Over the course of the season, Miami has averaged 14.1 first-half points — tied with San Francisco for the fifth-best scoring rate in the NFL — and owns sole possession of the fifth-highest mark (16.2 first-half points) among home games this season. This is obviously a positive sign as the Dolphins return home. But Miami has managed just 10 first-half points per game in the last three weeks. A strong start would certainly be a welcome sign for this offense, not to mention that it would present quite a bit of hope for halting this losing skid in its tracks.
3. Will Green Bay be able to sustain its recent success against Miami, or will the Packers’ 2022 struggles on the road and in inter-conference matchups take priority?
Just like a win would keep Green Bay’s current winning streak alive, it would also continue a predominant pattern in recent matchups between these two teams. While Green Bay is just 5-10 all-time against Miami, four of those five wins have come in the last five meetings, a stretch that goes back to 2002. The Dolphins' lone victory was a 23-20 overtime win at Lambeau Field in 2010. And just like these teams have encountered nearly opposite trends over the last several weeks, this series has followed a similar theme: Miami won the first eight meetings and nine of the first 10 between 1971 and 2000 before Green Bay’s current dominance in this cross-conference battle.
But the Packers are just 1-3 against the AFC this season, not to mention 2-5 on the road. Green Bay’s lone out-of-conference win came in Week 5 at home against New England, with losses in their last three against the Jets, Bills and Titans. And away from Lambeau Field, the results haven’t been much better: the Packers lost five of their first six road games before collecting a divisional win against the Bears in Week 13 to open December. It doesn't figure to get any easier against a Dolphins team that is 5-1 at home and has won three straight inside Hard Rock Stadium.
Final Analysis
Miami’s recent losses may seem troubling, but the Dolphins' success at home appears to be reliable enough to believe that they can bounce back. Combine that with Green Bay’s rampant struggles away from home and, while close games have been extremely common for both of these teams, Miami’s edge in one-possession games resembles the slight advantage that should help up when these two teams kick off the NFL's Christmas Day tripleheader.
Prediction: Dolphins 27, Packers 20
