Philadelphia Eagles (4-9-1) at Dallas Cowboys (5-9)

A couple weeks ago, I bet the Eagles confidently as 8-point home underdogs against the Saints in Jalen Hurts’ first career start. The Eagles are a solid defensive team and, while I wasn’t sold on Hurts as a starting option, he couldn’t have been worse than Carson Wentz had played this season and the Saints seemed likely to be caught off guard by him, with no pre-season tape on him and a much tougher game on deck for the Saints against the Chiefs. 

Hurts was far from perfect in that game, but played well enough to win, especially hurting the Saints on the ground and, while the Eagles lost last week in Arizona, the Eagles’ offense scored 26 points in a 32-26 loss. The public seems to now be sold on Hurts, as the oddsmakers have boosted this spread from Philadelphia -1 over the Cowboys on the early line last week to Philadelphia -3 this week and the public is betting them, despite their loss in Arizona last week and the Cowboys’ win over the 49ers. 

I am not sold on Hurts, so I think we’re getting some line value with the Cowboys. I think two games into his rookie season is too early to be sold on him, especially since I wasn’t sold on him coming out of college. He caught the Saints off guard in his debut and last week he faced one of the worst defenses in the league in Arizona and underperformed expectations with only a 32.91% first down rate. The Cowboys are also a little underrated because people look at their season long performance and not how they’ve played in recent weeks. 

Turnovers were a big problem for the Cowboys earlier in the season, as they had a league worst -13 turnover margin through the first 7 games of the season, but have been +7 in the past 7 games. Turnover margins are highly inconsistent on a week-to-week basis, so I wouldn’t expect them to continue winning the turnover battle like they have in recent weeks, but I definitely wouldn’t expect them to go back to losing the turnover battle as badly as they were earlier in the season. 

In terms of schedule adjusted first down rate differential, the Cowboys rank 17th at +0.31%. Their offense obviously hasn’t been as effective at moving the chains since losing Dak Prescott four and a half games into the season, but they’ve been better in recent weeks since getting Andy Dalton back and more comfortable in this offense. My roster rankings have these two teams about even, especially with stud defensive tackle Fletcher Cox seemingly likely to be limited after not practicing all week, so we’re getting good line value with the Cowboys as 3-point home underdogs, with at least some fans in the stadium. The Cowboys are a smart bet at +3 and are worth a bet at +140 as they should be considered no worse than 50/50 to win this game.

Dallas Cowboys 22 Philadelphia Eagles 20 Upset Pick +140

Pick against the spread: Dallas +3

Confidence: Medium