NFL Week 7 Betting Preview: Cowboys Favored vs Eagles in Key SNF Match-Up

I’ve recently blogged about the “NCAA-ification” of High School football, which has been taking place slowly over a number of years in Texas, Florida, California…and by-extension the Midwest.

I speak not of the Power-5 recruiting buzz, or the quasi-recruitment of players at private prep-school powerhouses. Instead, there’s a new NCAA-quality to the outcomes of games. It used to be that warring prep teams ran the same plays or at least offered-up similar styles, and old-fashioned coaching methods led to predictable results in which the bigger and faster rosters would almost always win. If School A blew out School B and School B blew out School C, you could be assured (or alarmed) that School A would massacre School C.

It doesn’t work that way anymore. Styles make fights, and the influence of Saturday afternoons has caused prep coaches to spread ’em out or tighten-up the OL splits and run power, power, power…or even employ bizarre laterals and 4-down offenses. Modern teaching methods have led to an unpredictable landscape where there are fewer true patsies and every Friday night is a challenge. Tim Tebow’s state-championship team at Nease High School went something like 7-3 in the regular season. That’s a far cry from an old-school type of state champion that would win 55-0 15 weeks in a row until finally meeting a toughie under the brightest lights.

The NFL is going through an “NCAA” phase of its own.

Again, we aren’t merely talking about college-ish shotgun-spread offenses in which dual-threat QBs can flourish, though it’s amazing to see short, fast signal-callers like Russell Wilson and Kyler Murray running the option play in the National Football League…something the “experts” had told us was impossible for 50+ years. (Damned if Tebow isn’t partially responsible for that, too.)

There’s also a college quality to pro outcomes in 2019-20, and some handicappers (such as your faithful WagerBop pundit) are actually excited about it.

NFL scores used to have a random quality, since the talent on all 32 teams was more-or-less the same, and very subtle factors determined which clubs made it to the playoffs and prevailed once there. A fun experiment circa-2005 would have been to hand professional gridiron analysts a sheet of randomized fake scores and a sheet of real scores and see if they could always tell them apart.

If FBS outcomes used to be less predictable than High School outcomes, they were almost always more predictable than NFL results on a wide scale. You pretty much know that Alabama is going to beat The Citadel, but until-recently it wasn’t as clear-cut that a defending Super Bowl champion would clobber the lowest-ranked NFL team.

But as of present-day there’s a more clearly-defined hierarchy of Shield franchises. It’s hard to imagine the New England Patriots losing to the Redskins or the Dolphins or the Jets – in fact the latter 3 teams could probably try for an upset 3x each and go 0-9 against the Brady Bunch. There are extremely-good and extremely-bad NFL squads and it’s not as hard to tell the difference as it used to be.

It makes handicapping into less of a crap-shoot…until you get to those match-ups where a .500 team faces another .500 team. Like this weekend’s Sunday Night Football contest between the Philadelphia Eagles and the slumping Dallas Cowboys.

I still like the Cowboys to make the playoffs and perhaps threaten a Super Bowl bid…but losing 3 games in 6 tries is bad juju for a contender these days. There are so many vulnerable clubs in the mix that a top-rated franchise is simply supposed to win a lot, and another loss for the Silver Star could portend serious issues headed into the late-season stretch run.

Put simply, the ‘Boys are under pressure…perhaps more pressure than the visiting Eagles headed into Sunday night.

Here’s a review of my 3 favorite gambler’s picks for this NFL Sunday…and feel free to scroll-to-bottom if you’re impatient to see how Las Vegas is treating the Philadelphia-at-Dallas kickoff.

L.A. Rams at Atlanta Falcons 

Speaking of being at 3-3 and in desperate straits, Sean McVay of the Los Angeles Rams realized this week that his club needs a spark to not only get above .500 but hopefully contend for another NFC title. The skipper and his front office made a bold move.

The Mountain Goats have given up 3 draft picks (including 2 1st-rounders!) to pry disgruntled CB Jalen Ramsey away from the Jacksonville Jaguars. Ramsey is arguably the top cover CB in the NFL. While the Rams gave up a haul, they now have a shutdown pass-defender to pair with the interior force of Aaron Donald. The roster is interested, intrigued, and jazzed-up.

It’s good news for a team that has been weak vs the pass throughout most of a 3-game slide. Jameis Winston was able to expose the Los Angeles secondary while throwing 4 TD passes in a 55-40 Tampa Bay upset of the Goats, and Russell Wilson tossed another 4 scores the following week.

Jared Goff is also getting called into question (what else is new?) following a dismal 20-7 loss to San Francisco. Goff has completed 62.2% of his passes for 1,727 yards, and while that isn’t exactly terrible, his TD-INT ratio of 7-7 is putrid for the modern era.

Todd Gurley did return to practice this week after sitting out last week with a quad injury, and he will attempt to play and augment a frustrated big-name WR corps against the host Atlanta Falcons.

Maybe Atlanta presents a get-well opponent for the L.A. Rams. The Falcons are struggling to keep teams out of the end zone. Atlanta allowed 87 points combined to Houston and Arizona, and while Matt Ryan is having a career year throwing the ball, he is clearly getting no help on the other side as the club is a miserable 1-5.

Last week’s scrum brought only heartache as the Dirty Birds were set to tie the game at 34 after a see-saw battle with the Cardinals, but kicker Matt Bryant missed a PAT attempt, leading to a 34-33 loss. Still the gambling public is skeptical that the Rams will play well enough to win on the road, shrinking Atlanta’s moneyline to (+145) in a contest with a rising (55) point total.

Pick: Under 

Baltimore Ravens at Seattle Seahawks

The 4-2 Ravens will travel across 3 time zones to take on the 5-1 Seahawks at CenturyLink Field on Sunday afternoon. For years, both of these teams have been known for defensive prowess, but that trend may be shifting as each is now among the best in the NFL offensively.

Wilson has been stupendous in 2019. He has thrown 14 touchdown passes while yet to throw an INT, an historic statistical feat that doesn’t even do justice to his dangerous scrambling style. Wilson has completed 72.5% of his passes while evading rushers and adding yards on the ground, and his 124.7 QB rating is the best in the league by a mile…surpassing the more-heralded Patrick Mahomes.

Not that the Seahawks are crushing opponents. Several of the team’s wins have come by 4 points or fewer, and it’s unlikely that the club can simply out-score Baltimore in a shoot-out. Only the Patriots average more points per game than Baltimore has with former Louisville phenom Lamar Jackson at the helm. Jackson could be considered a QB in the Russell Wilson mode, but he’s taller, and perhaps even more explosive when running up-field or dashing toward the flat to find an open receiver.

Baltimore has posted back-to-back division wins against the Steelers and the Bengals, bouncing back after consecutive losses to the Chiefs and the Browns. Jackson has been efficient as a passer with a 65.1% completion percentage and just over 1,500 yards, but John Harbaugh is less shy about using the 11-on-11 ground game than his brother as head coach at San Francisco, when Colin Kaepernick was somehow turned into a timid pocket QB as Jim Harbaugh turned into an average Big Ten skipper.

Jackson could have probably rushed for 400 yards against Cincinnati last week, but cool and balanced play-calling helped the youngster net 152 yards on 19 carries, bringing his season total to 460 yards. With Mark Ingram running for 4.9 YPC and Jackson at 6.7 YPC, the Ravens boast the number 1 rushing attack in the league and rank 1st in total yards averaged with 465.3.

Surprisingly the Over/Under has fallen to (49.5). Perhaps some bettors believe that all of the extra running plays added by the 2 quarterbacks (on plays where a typical NFL QB might throw incomplete) will grind the clock and shorten the game. I’m more interested in Baltimore’s (+135) moneyline as a run-heavy approach might just be the secret to dealing with CenturyLink’s nuclear-noise level.

Pick: Baltimore 

Sunday Night Football: Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys 

Remember what I said about underdogs like the New York Jets losing 9 times in a row to a favorite like the Patriots? The same doesn’t apply (apparently) to a favorite like the Silver Star.

Big D is shocked after handing the Jets a maiden win last week. Sam Darnold’s return was a boost in the Big Apple but it shouldn’t have been enough to lead the NYJ to victory against a Super Bowl hopeful. Dallas was looking at a 21-6 deficit at the half, and although the Cowboys fought back, they came up short to lose 24-22.

Dallas struggled offensively on the road. Dak Prescott was 28-of-40 passing for 278 yards but couldn’t find the end zone despite a healthy-enough ground game led by Ezekiel Elliott.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia defense has been rock solid against the run but has had a hard time defending aerial assaults. The Eagles’ cornerback situation is just short of awful, and a victory for Dallas may be as simple as convincing Dak Prescott to take what the defense gives him against soft coverage.

But Jason Garrett is not the type of coach to write running plays out of a game plan.

The odds are holding steady, at least on the moneyline. The Dallas Cowboys remain a (-135) favorite at Bovada Sportsbook after a week’s worth of gambling action. Until the totals on a lot of prime-time FBS and NFL contests in the 1st half of the season, the Over/Under is rising and near 50 points at (49.5).

I’m skeptical of defenses that commit to stopping the run but can’t do more than tackle WRs following short completions. I remember when the San Diego Chargers played Steve Young and the 49ers in a Super Bowl – rather than blitz or do anything different, the defensive coordinator had the Bolts chanting “5 yard pass, 6 yard gain” over and over in meetings. Except a simple pass-completion rate of 66% spells doom in that scenario since it only takes a pair of 6-yard gains to make a 1st down. The Charger game plan was essentially “let the 49ers throw for 1st downs at will and hope something good happens.” Needless to say it didn’t work.

Not to say the Eagles will sit back for 4 quarters, and of course the Cowboy offense is a far cry from San Francisco’s champions of yore at this juncture. But I’m liking the match-up of Prescott at Jerry World against a defense-in-transition that gave up 38 points – and a healthy # of rush yards – to Minnesota in an 18-point loss last weekend.

Pick: Cowboys ATS (-2.5)