JEFF ALLEN GAME PREVIEW: COWBOYS at GIANTS
Tonight’s Sunday Night Football features a key NFC East battle between the 11-1 Dallas Cowboys and the 8-4 NY Giants. The game has huge playoff implications and is a revenge match of the Giants Week One 20-19 win over the Cowboys in Dallas. The Cowboys are the only team in football to have punched their ticket to the playoffs and can pretty much guarantee home field throughout with a win here. The Giants are currently the top Wild Card team in the NFC and can solidify their position with a win here. It would also improve their slim division chances should the Cowboys lose three of their final four and Big Blue win out, the Giants would win the East by virtues of the 2-0 H2H sweep.
The game opened at Dallas -3 and 47.5 but was bet to -3.5 in a flash. Cowboy money has seen the line climb to -4 in some houses but as of this writing, the number is -3.5 across the board. The total has dropped a point to 46.5 and the weather forecast has a 60% chance of snow showers at game time with the temps in the low 30s
for the 8:30 PM EST lick on NBC.
The Cowboys are a completely different team than they were in Week One when they faced the Giants. At that point, Dak Precott had just taken over for Tony Romo and Jason Garrett was forced to train on the job with a very vanilla game plan early on. Now, 11 straight wins later, Prescott and Elliot are battling it out for Rookie of the Year and possible even MVP honors as the Cowboys look to run the table for the best regular season in football. The defense
is adequate and is now always well rested thanks to the Pokes power running game. The Cowboys also have excellent special teams including the best placekicker in the NFL.
The Giants have seemingly done it with smoke and mirrors as the metrics show this team to a sub-.500 outfit. They can’t run the ball and their new $200 million dollar defense is improved but is still No.21 overall in the league. Big Blue now has injuries to contend with and their top pass rusher JPP just went down for the season with a sports hernia. Eli Manning has kept his bad turnovers in check for most of the year but the G-men are now just 13-38 on third down the last three games which won’t work against the Cowboys.
The Giants have lost every big game they’ve been in all year except the opener and despite being home, would look to be up against it here. This is the first revenge/payback game for Dak/Elliot who both had average or less games vs.the Giants in Week One. This is the last chance for the Giants who have been here before and certainly won’t go quietly. Still confirming some information regarding injuries but at this point would lean Cowboys.