It’s the Battle for Texas on Sunday at AT&T Stadium, as Jerry Jones’s Dallas Cowboys will host their in-state rivals, the Houston Texans.
These two NFL teams are heading in opposite directions, as the Cowboys are looking to win a Super Bowl while the Texans are looking at another year at the top of the draft board. We’ll see if Dallas can impose their win on the hapless Texans.
Let’s take a look at each team, and then we’ll give you our NFL Betting prediction for this all-Texas matchup.
The Battle for Texas in the NFL on Sunday | Houston Texans at Dallas
Houston Texans
It has been an NFL season to forget for the Houston Texans. Lovie Smith was hired to help turn the franchise around after all of the issues that had plagued the organization.
Even though their record is poor this season, they do have multiple draft picks from the Deshaun Watson trade that will help to speed up the rebuilding process. The one-win team has lost seven in a row, and now get to face one of the league’s hottest teams.
The offense is averaging just over 15 points per game. Kyle Allen was brought in to replace the struggling second-year quarterback Davis Mills. Allen has fared much better, throwing four interceptions in last week’s loss to the Cleveland Browns.
Dameon Pierce has been the lone bright spot for the Houston offense. He has established himself as Houston’s top back and has been the main source of their offense.
Even though Smith is a defensive coach, the Texans’ defense hasn’t been very strong this season. While the pass defense has been improving, the run defense is the worst in the league.
The Texans have given up over 2000 yards on the ground this season. We look for Dallas to exploit Houston’s poor run defense and then mix in a lot of play action to work over the secondary.
Dallas Cowboys
Dallas is one of the hottest teams in the league. Since Dak Prescott returned from injury, Dallas has been playing great football. The Cowboys have won three straight after decimating the Colts 54-19 on Sunday night. With Prescott leading the way, this offense has been tremendous.
Tony Pollard and Ezekiel Elliott are running well, and Elliott looks like his old self. CeeDee Lamb and Michael Gallup have been a great receiving duo, and Dalton Schultz has emerged as a huge weapon in this high-powered offense.
Not only does Dallas have a great offense, but their defense is one of the best in the league. Dallas has a great secondary, and they’ve given up the least amount of yardage through the air in the league. You can run on Dallas, but this defense tends to get stronger when the opponent is in the red zone, so they’re very hard to score on.
Prediction
Houston is bad, but are they 17 points bad? That’s the spread in this one. Houston has failed to cover the betting spread in four of their last five NFL games, and even though it’s a rather large spread, we’re going to take the Cowboys to cover in this one.
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