This week, the 4-3 and division leading Dallas Cowboys travel to Jersey to face the 2-6 New York Giants in a Monday night NFC East showcase.
The second time these two have played in 2019, Dallas is looking for much of the same from their September match-up while the Giants look to flip the script. Dallas comes into this game a heavy road favorite, and the point total suggests that Vegas expects a shootout by NFL standards.
Let’s discuss these teams and get into this week’s prediction.
The Line
Cowboys -7. O/U 48 points.
Dallas Cowboys
Coming off a bye week and a long week 9 wait given the Monday Night start, the Dallas Cowboys should be well rested and itching to get after it this week. The last time we saw the Cowboys on the field, they were undressing the Philadelphia Eagles on national television.
The Cowboys offense has been clicking just about all year, ranking number 1 in total offensive DVOA and being controlled by a quarterback looking to stake his MVP claim during the back half of the season.
The time is now for Dallas to prove they can “take the next step” in 2019. They need to stack wins over the next few weeks and try to build themselves a cushion in the NFC East, while also positioning themselves favorably for playoff seeding among the entire conference.
Dallas can’t afford to drop games to lesser teams, especially considering their strength of schedule the rest of the way.
New York Giants
This is not the same New York Giants football team the Cowboys saw during the season opener, but I’m not sure that it’s much better either.
Daniel Jones has come back to Earth a bit after his incredible debut start in Tampa, but he did have one of his better starts a week ago in Detroit. Still, like Eli Manning before him, Jones is quite turnover prone. He came in for mop-up duty back during that season opening game, and gave up a fumble in limited time.
Defensively this team is flat out bad. They rank 28th in terms of DVOA against the pass, and have been getting shredded by just about every offense they’ve faced this season. Dak Prescott abused the Giants secondary during their first match-up, and there’s not much reason to expect it go to differently on Monday.
Trends
- The Cowboys are 7-0 both straight up and against the spread their last 7 divisional games.
- The Cowboys are 5-0 against the spread their last 5 games against the Giants.
- The Giants are 3-6 against the spread their last 9 games.
- The score total has gone under in 5 of the last 7 Cowboys/Giants games.
Prediction
Give me the Cowboys -7 on the road this week.
Dallas should be well rested, prepared, and motivated to take control of this game from the get-go and have an uncharacteristically fast start.
No doubt Saquon Barkley and the Giants offense will poise some issues for the Cowboys, but Prescott’s passing attack should allow Dallas to build a big league early and play keep away for much of the night.
