On Thursday night, the Jacksonville Jaguars were the betting favourite in an NFL game for the first time since Week 9 of the 2019 season.

Spoiler alert: It didn’t go the way they wanted.

Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick threw for two touchdowns and ran for another in a 31-13 win over the Jaguars on Thursday Night Football.

While the 37-year-old Fitzpatrick is 13 years older than his Thursday counterpart Gardner Minshew, he certainly looked like the younger quarterback in the double-digit victory.

Here is the Morning Coffee for Friday Sept. 25, 2020.

The Facial Hair Faceoff

The Facial Hair Faceoff didn’t turn out to be nearly as exciting as some had thought it might be.

Fitzpatrick, armed with his luscious beard and playing like he had something to prove, completed a career-high 12 straight passes to open the game and finished 18-of-20 for 160 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran for 38 yards and a score.

Miami running back Myles Gaskin, who was on our radar as a potential fantasy sleeper this week, ran for 66 yards and added five receptions for another 29 yards.

Meanwhile, the Miami defence stepped up with four sacks and two forced turnovers while limiting the Jaguars offence to its lowest scoring output of the season so far.

Minshew, who was hyped as a potential sleeper this week following his strong start to the year, really missed wide receiver D.J. Chark.

Chris Conley led Jacksonville with eight targets, but he finished with only three catches for 34 yards with two drops and an offensive pass interference call.

The victory marked the Dolphins’ first double-digit win in 39 games, ending the NFL’s longest drought.

Miami won outright as a three-point favourite, improving to 2-1 against the spread this season following last week’s backdoor cover in a 31-28 loss to the Buffalo Bills.

The total for this game had been bet from 46 all the way up to 49.5 throughout the week.

While the under hit at each of those numbers, one sharp bettor hit on the over 41.5 after spending the majority of the night sweating it out.

Can Denver Do It Again?

Anthony Davis scored a game-high 34 points, LeBron James chipped in 26 and the Los Angeles Lakers took a 3-1 series lead with a 114-108 win over the Denver Nuggets in Game 4 of the Western Conference final. 

According to Elias Sports, the Lakers are now 18-1 this season when Anthony Davis and LeBron James combine for 60 or more points.

Jamal Murray did his best to keep Denver in this one with 32 points, including this ridiculous up-and-under lay-up that had Twitter making Michael Jordan comparisons. 

The Lakers are now one win away from the team’s first NBA Finals appearance in a decade. Based on what we have seen from its opponent so far in these playoffs, that clinching victory might be the toughest.

Saturday’s Game 5 will mark the seventh time this season that the Nuggets will face elimination. So far this postseason, Denver is 6-0 in those games.

LeBron’s teams are 14-0 all-time in playoff series’ in which they have taken a 3-1 series lead.

Something has to give.

The Lakers opened as six-point favourites for Game 5. Los Angeles is now -3333 to win the series – a 97.1 per cent implied win probability.

Aces Pushed To The Brink

Alyssa Thomas returned from a dislocated shoulder that knocked her out of Game 2 and scored 23 points to lead the Connecticut Sun to a 77-68 upset win over the Las Vegas Aces in Game 3 of their WNBA semifinal on Thursday night.

Connecticut was a six-point underdog for this contest – the third straight game they have been an underdog of six points or more to open this series.

The Sun is 2-1 straight up and 2-1 against the spread in the series.

Thomas, who suffered the injury in the first quarter of Tuesday’s Game 2 loss, scored eight points in the final three minutes to help the Sun push Las Vegas to the brink of elimination.

Are the Aces in trouble? Our basketball analyst Kia Nurse broke it down.

Meanwhile, Jewell Loyd scored 20 points, Breanna Stewart had 17 points and eight rebounds and the Seattle Storm doubled down on the Minnesota Lynx with an 89-79 win to take a 2-0 lead in the other semifinal series. 

Seattle, which only barely squeezed past Minnesota with a last-second basket by Alysha Clark to win Game 1, covered as an 8.5-point favourite.

You can catch both WNBA playoff semifinals series games on Sunday on TSN 2.

Game 4 between the Aces and Sun is at 1 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT, followed by Game 3 between the Storm and Lynx at 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PT.

Blue Jays Clinch

Three months ago, the Toronto Blue Jays were a young team without a home and facing some notable obstacles at the beginning of a 60-game shortened season.

Fast forward 57 games later and the Blue Jays remain a young team without a home facing some notable obstacles.

The only difference now: Toronto is playoff-bound.

The Blue Jays clinched their first playoff berth since 2016 with a 4-1 win over the New York Yankees on Thursday night.

Toronto, which was listed as high as 100-to-1 to win the World Series as recently as mid-July, is currently listed at 40-to-1 to win it all. 

The Los Angeles Dodgers remain the World Series favourite at +375, followed by a pair of American League East teams in the New York Yankees at +600 and the Tampa Bay Rays at +800.