There are five weeks of the regular NFL season remaining and the first of those begins, as always, on Thursday night when two of the best sides in the NFC go at it in a high profile Thursday Night Football.
Minnesota Vikings host the conference leading Dallas Cowboys in a match between two sides with a winning record. For the Vikings they can go with a game at the top of the division with a win while Dallas will secure a playoff spot should they win.
Minnesota Vikings
The Vikings go into this match off the back of dropping the Thanksgiving game in Detroit so they really need to find three or four wins from their last five matches if they are to take the division away from the Lions and the way they are set up that is going to be a tough ask.
We know that the Vikings have a defence that can contain most sides but they can struggle offensively although they hope to have leading wide receiver Stefon Diggs back for this match which will be a boost to them on that side of the ball. They might have to play without their coach Mike Zimmer who had an emergency eye operation on Wednesday.
Dallas Cowboys
The team of the season have been the Dallas Cowboys armed with their elite rookie pairing of quarterback Dak Prescott, who seems to be getting better and better by the game, and running back Ezekiel Elliott who is taking advantage of running behind the best offensive line in the league. With other weapons around them the Cowboys have shown good form in winning 10 on the spin.
If there is a weakness in the Cowboys it is undoubtedly in their passing defence. They have no pass rush and as such their secondary is always under pressure to deliver and that means they give up plenty of passing yards and more recently they have started to concede a few more points than they would like which is worry.
Betting
I’m taking two bets on this match. The first of them is on the Dallas Cowboys to cover a field goal. Usually I wouldn’t touch a road side on a Thursday night but both of these played on Thanksgiving so there is no disadvantage to either of them and certainly not to the Cowboys.
The Minnesota defence is really good and it will be a great battle between that defence and this Dallas offensive line but Detroit ran the ball against the Vikings last week and if they can do it the Cowboys certainly can and that running ability combined with Dax’s poise under pressure leads me to live Dallas here.
I’m also going to take Sam Bradford to go over 250.5 passing yards. I’ve mentioned how you can build up yards on this Dallas pass defence and there are a couple of reasons for that. One being that there isn’t a pass rush and the second is that sides are often behind and have to force the pace.
I expect that to be the case here but even were Minnesota to go in front you can’t run on this Dallas side and they’re not running it well anyway so Bradford will need to get this done himself. Diggs being back helps so I’m expecting the former St Louis quarterback to go beyond 250.5 passing yards.
Tips
Back Dallas Cowboys (-3) to beat Minnesota Vikings for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Skybet
Back them here:
Back S.Bradford Over 250.5 passing yards for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
Back him here:
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