The third week of action in the NFL season concludes with a divisional battle in the Monday Night Football when the NFC East takes centre stage as the Dallas Cowboys play host to their rivals Philadelphia Eagles in a good looking match.
Both these sides have a win and a loss on their ledger but whoever wins here will come out of the week on top of the NFC East and in a position from which to launch a run at the divisional title which will of course secure a home playoff match.
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys were beaten by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the opening night of the new season but they bounced back nicely to win at the Los Angeles Chargers last week. It is fair to say that they rode their luck with some calls which went in their favour in that match but a win is a win and what was probably most important is that there was more of a balance to their offense. The other good thing from both matches really has been Dak Prescott coming back from injury as good as ever.
One thing that hasn’t changed with the Dallas Cowboys is their pass defence. It is the third worst in the league and is capable of giving up a number of big plays. It should be noted that so far they have played Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Los Angeles Chargers – or Tom Brady and Justin Herbert – but they still don’t look great especially in the secondary. The positive is that Micah Parsons looks every bit the stud he looked in pre-season so that is someone the Cowboys defence can build around.
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Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles opened up their season with a home win against the Atlanta Falcons but they followed that up with a home loss to the San Francisco 49ers last week. Defensively in that match they were good statistically, restricting Jimmy Garoppolo and the 49ers passing game to minimum yardage, but as we saw in the Sunday Night Football, that might be on the San Fran quarterback as much as the Philly defence.
The issue with the Eagles comes in the form of their offense. Jalen Hurts has made some good plays at quarterback, although they have largely been with his legs. He has attempted a number of deep balls but hasn’t always had the radar correct. There is a day when he will connect with a number of those passes and someone will get taken to the cleaners. Philadelphia will be hoping that is here, especially if their defence is slightly overrated on who they have faced this term.
Betting
I would imagine the Dallas Cowboys will come out on top here and I might have been interested in backing them to cover a field goal but the extra half a point on the spread makes me retreat a little bit from that. I’ve already been burned by the 0.5 this week and I’ve lost a bet last week to it as well so I’m happy to let that be, especially in a division game and this early in the season where the schedule might be skewing a few statistics the wrong way.
I’ll instead look at the player props markets where actually I like the idea of Jalen Hurts to cover a passing yards line of 243.5. There is a good chance his side will spend periods of this match behind and chasing the game which immediately brings natural passing yards into play but this Dallas defence are synonymous with giving up huge passing plays. Their secondary isn’t good enough and they are without their best pass rusher too so assuming Hurts gets plenty of time I wouldn’t be surprised to see him connect with some big plays. Dallas don’t tend to give much up against the run so passing is the way to success for the Eagles and their second year quarterback should be taken to go past 243.5 passing yards in this one.
Tips
Back J.Hurts – Over 243.5 passing yards for a 3/10 stake at 1.87 with Boylesports
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