Dallas Cowboys vs Arizona Cardinals: Grit

Opportunity

The start of the season for the Dallas Cowboys was not that great. Their defense can't stop anybody and is one of the main reasons why they're sitting at 2-3 after the first five games. While allowing 36 points per game, they should probably be happy with those two wins that they have. But defense is the least of their concerns at the moment. What happened last week shook the entire Cowboys organization to their core. Their franchise QB Dak Prescott suffered a gruesome injury. While being tackled, his ankle got fractured and he is done for the season.

The good news for Dallas in this unfortunate situation is that they have one of the best backup QBs in the league. Andy Dalton bet on himself when signing as a backup in Dallas for only 3 million, even though he had better offers elsewhere. Now an opportunity presented itself and that is all he needed. He was a started for a long time in Cincinnati, leading the Bengals to a couple of playoff appearances. His play deteriorated in the last few years, but the entire Bengals franchise was falling apart and was not a great environment to be in. They eventually moved on from Dalton, who now has an opportunity to work with a very talented group around him in Dallas.

Inconsistent

Arizona won three out of their five games, but I don't think they're entirely satisfied with their record. They fell to Detroit and Carolina in games that they probably feel like they should have won. Those losses might cost them in the end, because they are playing in one of the most competitive divisions in the league, where as of last night, there are no losing teams. San Francisco managed to improve to 3-3, while LA Rams and Seattle sit at the top of the division with four and five wins respectively.

Similar to Dallas, they also have a player injured that will be dearly missed. Chandler Jones tore his biceps last week. He was the leader of this defense ever since joining the Cardinals from the Patriots a couple of years ago. Without him, they will struggle to put pressure on opposing QB's, especially when playing against solid OL's like this one. They'll need their coverage to step up force signal-callers to hold on to the ball longer, in order to give the pass rush more time to get there.

Cowboys vs Cardinals betting tips

That's gonna be nearly impossible vs Cowboys. That is because they have such a talented group of receivers. Not many teams have so many solid corners to cover them all, meaning they'll always find a match-up out there that they'll be comfortable with. And not only that, any one of those guys (Cooper, Gallup, Lamb) is able to get open against any corner in the league. Besides that, they have a running game that helps them keep everything balanced, which is key to success in the NFL

Because of that and those defensive issues, I'm leaning towards the over in this one. That has been a trend this year anyway, thanks to less holding penalties being called. But not only that. Arizona has a lot of talent on offense with Murray and Hopkins drawing a lot of attention and allowing others to stay under the radar. Young and creative play-caller like Kingsbury knows how to use that, which we could see in the first month of the season.

Also, don't forget to check out our new feature for comparing outright odds. These two opponents are both part of the NFC West division. Odds for winning it can be found with this link: https://theplayer.com/odds/american-football/usa/nfl/nfl-nfc-division-west-winner-reg-season