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Cowboys (8:20PM ET NBC) – It’s a busy Sunday of NFL Week 1 action that finishes in Prime Time when the Dallas Cowboys hit the road to take on the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. 

Let’s start with the spot, it’s a prime-time game on the opening Sunday of the NFL season so we should have no problem getting both teams best effort here and (as I’ve talked about a bunch during the offseason) I think the Cowboys are the far superior of these two teams.  I’ve been to THIS game (Cowboys at Giants) in both the old Giants Stadium and at MetLife 4-5 times, there are PLENTY of Cowboys fans in the northeast and they all come into town for this one so the crowd here will be more split than one would imagine. 

Dallas does have a banged up offensive line coming into the season, which is the reason the -3’s are available right now, but I’m not at all sold on the Giants pass rush being able to fully exploit that here.  Where the Giants will excel defensively this season is stopping the run, but no Ezekeil Elliott is (in my opinion) addition by subtraction as Tony Pollard has been the far better back for a couple years now and will now be rightfully featured in this Cowboys offense.  I think Dallas ends up being able to throw the ball, Dak Prescott isn’t nearly as bad as the media makes him out to be and he has two studs to throw the ball to in CeeDee Lamb and Brandin Cooks.  The Giants have a poor secondary that lacks talent so if Prescott can get the ball out and somewhat on target I think the Cowboys receiving corps could have a field day here. 

Last season I was “all-in” on the Giants because they were far better than where the market had them priced and, thus, value against the number on a week in and week out basis.  That Giants team managed to make the playoffs and win their Wild Card round game against the Vikings meaning expectations are now sky high in the Garden State this year for the G-Men.  I’m not buying the Giants hype, I think they were able to navigate through a very manageable schedule last season and when things started to get tough the Giants started to show their true colors going 2-5-1 to close out the regular season.  I think Daniel Jones played as good as he possibly could have played last year but he was in a contract year and one has to wonder whether he can replicate that after getting paid and now having even more expectations heaped on him.  Everyone expects Darren Waller to come in and take this Giants offense to the next level but Waller had an excellent rapport with Derek Carr who I still feel is a far better quarterback than Jones.  I won’t be at all surprised if Jones (at least in the early going) tries to force the ball to Waller and turns it over a couple of times as turnovers have been one of the biggest detriments for Jones during his career. 

I think the Cowboys could potentially be elite this season and that would make some sense considering this is the year they are barely getting talked about.  The masses will tell you the Eagles are headed back to the Super Bowl, the Commanders are terrible but the “sleeper” in this division is the Giants.  That’s where I disagree, I think the team that probably wins this division is Dallas and (for once) the Cowboys seem to be the team under the radar.  I expect the Giants offensive line to struggle with the Cowboys elite pass rush (as usual) and even if Dallas shows some deficiencies that we can play against down the road I don’t think those show up in the opener against what I consider to be an inferior Giants team.  Play on Cowboys -3 (-120) for 4% (or 4 units)