As of August, the Cowboys are a 7.5 point home favorite in their season opener hosting the New York Giants with the total sitting at 46.5. We’ll preview the game and offer a pick against the spread below.
The Cowboys won the NFC East last season and while they beat the Giants twice both games were close. America’s team was 9-9 ATS last season and they have covered the spread in their last four games facing the Giants.
The Giants finished in last place in the NFC East last season going 5-11 and while they failed to cover in a seven-point loss to the Cowboys in Week 2 they covered the spread in their remaining seven road games.
One More Go-Around
The Giants will start the season, yet again, with Eli Manning, who passed for nearly 4,300 yards, but only had 21 TD and only ranked 25th the league in QBR. Their WR corps is decent at best and in the off season they traded star Odell Beckham Jr. to the Browns and picked up Golden Tate.
Saquon Barkley won the Offensive Rookie of the Year (1,309 rushing yards) and after rushing for only 28 yards at Dallas in Week 2 he rushed for 109 yards against them at home in the season finale.
New York has issues on D heading into the season and last season only ranked 23rd in the league against the pass and 20th against the run. Last season’s leading tackler Landon Collins is now with the Redskins and Oliver Vernon led the team with seven sacks and is now with the Browns.
Zeke Wants His Money
While the Cowboys are balanced and have the talent for a deep playoff run all is not well in the Big D. Star RB Ezekiel Elliott, who led the league in rushing last season, wants a big contract and is threatening a preseason holdout. The team will likely sign him, and the offense is set with him, Dak Prescott, and Amari Cooper.
Dallas ranked a solid 7th last season on defense and ranked 5th in run defense, which is key in this game facing Barkley.
The Cowboys made some good off-season moves bringing in Robert Quinn to bolster the pass rush, Randall Cobb to bolster the WR corps, and future Hall of Famer TE Jason Witten is back after a year off. All-Pro center Travis Frederick is also back after missing last season with an injury and the O-Line may be one of the best in the league.
Predicting the Game
Last season the Cowboys were 7-1 at home and they have covered the spread in their last four games facing teams from the NFC East.
The Giants may be in for a long season going with Manning again, who has been less than stellar in the last couple of seasons, and a defense that has a lot of holes.
New York has a young star in Barkley, but not much else and go with an aging QB with 6th pick Daniel Jones waiting behind him for a season.
Had this game taken place at the end of last season, in Dallas, we would have made the Cowboys a -7 point favorite. Surprise! Right in line with the current number.
Obviously it’s the Cowboys who made the better off season moves. While the they added talent to make them better immediately, the Giants dumped talent to begin the building process.
That said, Dallas still needs to prove it can put some distance between themselves and opponents. Last season, they won two games by more than a TD. One was a 40-7 blowout of the Jags. The other an 8 point win over the Redskins.
There are a couple of +8’s on the board here in August and we’ll grab the points with the Giants to hang in there week 1.
Our Pick: Giants +8