Despite a 6-7 record, losing seven of their last 10 games and the absolutely real possibility that they will be replacing their head coach for the first time in a decade, the Dallas Cowboys do not need to beat the Los Angeles Rams in order to continue their hunt for the NFC East title and the No. 4 playoff seed.
In seasons past, head coach Jason Garrett always managed to stave off the unemployment line by finding a way to get his team to continually play hard regardless of the circumstance. As of now, that skill has disappeared. The Cowboys are a listless team, a group that for the majority of the season seems content on playing out the string.
The Rams on the other hand, are fighting for their playoff lives. Their record mirrored their counterpart at three different times throughout the season. Both teams started 3-0, dropped three straight to fall to .500 and ended up at 6-4. In their next three games, Los Angeles went 2-1, losing only to the Baltimore Ravens while the Cowboys put a goose egg in the win column in that same time frame.
The Rams are also 9-4 against the spread, tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the best in the NFL. They head to Arlington as one point favorites despite the line opening in favor of Dallas by the traditional three. In around 24 hours, the betting market drove it in the other direction wildly, swinging four points in the course of the week.
The last two match-ups have gone terribly for the Cowboys. In 2017, they blew a Week 4 game that may have cost them a playoff spot. Last season the two teams met in the NFC Divisional round in Los Angeles where the Rams ended Dallas’ Super Bowl dreams in a game that seems a cruel foreshadowing of the Cowboys’ issues this season, an inability to tackle and a slow start that put them in a hole they couldn’t dig there way out of in time.
The Verdict: The Cowboys continue to stumble over themselves, failing to cover the spread (+1) while the OVER (48.5) hits.
On the year: 8-5 ATS, 8-5 over/under.
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