NFL Betting Free Picks: Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants

Added on Nov 08, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

The Dallas Cowboys hit rock bottom in Sunday night’s loss to the Green Bay Packers, and on Monday Wade Phillips paid the price. There was every expectation that he’d be gone at the end of the season, but after the completely non-competitive performance against the Packers he couldn’t wait. Jason Garrett takes over as interim head coach and he doesn’t exactly catch a break for his first game. The Giants have been playing better football than just about anyone in the NFL of late, and will be perfectly happy to kick a division rival while they’re down.

Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants
November 14, 2010 1:15 PM Pacific

Wade Phillips was the first casualty of the Cowboys’ disastrous 2010 season but based on these words but he certainly won’t be the last. Consider these words from team owner Jerry Jones after the Packers loss:

“There are a lot of people here who are certainly going to suffer and suffer consequences. I’m talking about within the team — players, coaches who have got careers. This is certainly a setback. I know firsthand what it is to have high expectations.”

Translation–heads will roll, and Phillips is just the first. It’s also drawn the proverbial ‘line in the sand’ that the entire organization is on notice and no one is safe. As a handicapper, I evaluate these things a little differently but in my perspective the most shocking thing about this team isn’t their poor play on offense or defense–its the fact that no one seems to care about the fact that a team with a tradition of excellence is now the biggest joke in the NFL. The Cowboys have only displayed some semblance of competitive fire once this season–in their win at Houston. As things continued to go downhill from there, I kept waiting for a good spot to play on the Cowboys. As public perception against them has grown, it got to a point where we didn’t even need improved play–just some intensity.

Former Cowboy great Michael Irvin has been on the NFL Network several times since Sunday night’s debacle talking about this current crop of Dallas players ‘tarnishing the Star’. The concept of ‘pride’ and ‘tradition’ will become very important to the Cowboys down the road–losing games is one thing, but losing them in a completely non-competitive fashion quite another. With Phillips gone, the rest of the season now becomes a test or, more appropriately, an ‘audition’ for players and coaches alike. If they want to play/coach in the NFL for one of the most traditionally successful teams in the leagues, its time to prove it.

If NFL betting was as easy as picking the ‘better’ team in every matchup, there wouldn’t be any of those big hotels in the desert. That’s why a contrarian approach to handicapping is such a strong foundation for successful sports betting and at this point there’s not a team in professional sports that the public wants any part of less than these Dallas Cowboys. This is clearly reflected in the pointspread for this game, with the Giants a -14′ point home favorite. That’s an amazing line with historical implications–the last time the Cowboys were an underdog of more than two touchdowns anywhere was in 2001 early in the season at Oakland when they were +17 under Dave Campo. Even the biggest critic of this current Dallas team would be hard pressed to make a case that Campo has more talent to work with than Garrett does–even with Romo sidelined.

The Giants won by six at Dallas earlier this season, and you have to go back to November 2008 to find a game between the two teams with a 14+ point margin of victory. Before the disastrous games of the last two weeks, this Cowboys team hadn’t lost by more than 7 points. So we don’t need Jason Garrett to work miracles in his first game as head coach, just to get the team playing at least as well as they were for most of the season. Jon Kitna is far from the most skilled quarterback in the league, but no one has ever questioned his character or work ethic. There may be some ‘bad apples’ on this team, but there’s also plenty of solid professionals. This is gut check time, and there’s enough ‘character guys’ on the Cowboys to expect a decent effort here.

We’re not expecting the Cowboys to win out, but it’s very common to see teams play better–at least in the short term–after a coaching change. Even if the current roster cares nothing about the tradition of the Cowboys, they’ve got some very personal and practical motivation–now that Phillips is gone the onus is on them to play better and a lack of effort here could mean being off the team or even out of the league next year. Garrett isn’t just a garden variety interim coach that Jones has turned to out of the necessity–he’s been a Jones favorite since he was hired and a strong showing the rest of the way could earn him a chance to be permanent head coach. There’s enough talent on the team that all we need at this price is for them to show up and compete. If they do that, we’ll cover this pointspread.

Bet Dallas Cowboys +14′ over New York Giants