How about them Cowboys? The Dallas Cowboys’ dream of ending their Super Bowl drought remains very much alive this season after they downed the Seattle Seahawks last Sunday. For them to continue, the Cowboys will have to defeat one of the top dogs in the NFL in the Los Angeles Rams, who will look to book their spot in the NFC Championship Game at the expense of Dallas.
Going into the game, current NFL Futures give the Cowboys +1400 odds to win Super Bowl 53 and +700 odds to win the NFC Championship while the Rams are priced at +240 to win the NFC and +500 to win the Super Bowl.
For the first time in two years, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott won a game in the playoffs. That’s after leading Dallas to a 24-22 home win over the Seattle Seahawks in the wild-card round last Sunday. The task is about to get harder for Prescott and the Cowboys, as they are set to meet next the Rams, but Dallas will feed off the momentum provided by the great performances of their star triumvirate of Prescott, running back Ezekiel Elliott, and wide receiver Amari Cooper. Against the Seahawks, Prescott passed for 226 passing yards and a touchdown with an interception on 22-for-33 completions. Elliott erupted for 137 rushing yards and a touchdown on 26 carries, while Cooper paced the team with 106 receiving yards on seven catches and nine targets. Defensively, the Cowboys expect their vaunted run defense to do its work against Rams running back Todd Gurley. Dallas finished the regular season fifth against the run with only 93.3 rushing yards allowed per game.
When playing on the road this season, Dallas is 3-5 straight up (SU) and 4-4 against the spread, however they are 3-1 ATS in their last four road games.
Betting on the Los Angeles Rams (13-3)
After a week of rest, the Rams will go back to action, looking to advance to the NFC Championship game. Before the playoffs started, the Rams fattened their morale reserve with back-to-back wins against lightweights in the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers. In both games, the Rams didn’t even have the services of star tailback Todd Gurley, who missed those two games because of a knee issue. The Rams were likely just resting Gurley for the playoffs then, but in the even that he can’t go against the Cowboys, Los Angeles will have to depend on veteran C.J Anderson for most of its production on the ground. Anderson has filled in nicely for Gurley, rushing for 167 yards and a touchdown against the Cardinals and 132 yards and a touchdown against the 49ers. Of course, there’s more to the Rams’ offense than Anderson, as the team still has the services of quarterback Jared Goff, who’s largely responsible for Los Angeles’ attack that ranked second in the regular season with 32.9 points per game.
The over is 3-0-1 ATS in the Rams’ last four home games.
