Daily Newsletter: NFL Week 11 MNF Preview (Nov. 18th)
An eventful Week 11 comes to a close on Monday night in JerryWorld with the Texans making the trip from Houston to Dallas to face-off with the Cowboys. Houston is looking to maintain a hold on their play-off spot while the Cowboys are looking for any bright spots in a season that’s been nothing but the opposite. The Texans are listed as 7.5 point road favorites while the total checks in at 41.5. Kick-off is set for 8:15 ET and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.
Houston Texans
This game is fascinating given the Cowboys struggles this season. When Dak Prescott was active, they went 0-3 at home giving up over 30 PPG. Last week was their only game at home with Rush at QB and they managed just 45 passing yards and scored 6 points. Houston HC has skewed very conservative as a coach in his career, which has prevented them from covering bigger spreads. Stroud has only covered 50% of the time when listed as a field goal favorite or above. That being said, this current version of the Cowboys isn’t very intimidating but they might be able to exploit the Texans true weakness on the offensive line. Stroud has been sacked the second-most in football behind only Caleb Williams – while the Cowboys lead the NFL in pressure% coming into this game. Stroud’s passing numbers also spike greatly this season with Nico Collins active and in the lineup, and he will be making his return to the field tonight providing a much needed boost. This game will come down to whether or not Micah Parsons and the Cowboys front can disrupt Stroud enough to stay in the game. I fully expect the Texans to win and I’m expecting Collins to continue his dominance this season, but 7.5 points is too many for me to lay with a conservative coach.
You can check out how these teams stack up against each other here in one of our NFL dataspaces.
Dallas Cowboys
On the Cowboys side, things can only go up from here…right? As noted above, Cooper Rush mustered just 45 passing yards last week and I’d be shocked if he came in that low again this week. For what it’s worth, his Vegas line is set at 177.5. We also can’t fully rule out seeing some Trey Lance this week, who worked in relief of Rush vs the Eagles last Sunday. Overall, you can run on Houston easier than you can throw on them – and it sounded in the media this week like we will see a heavy dose of Rico Dowdle tonight. I would be interested in overs on Dowdle props tonight if we do see an increased workload – attempts, yards or even longest rush given that the Texans have struggled giving up explosive runs at times this year. His line is set at 13.5 yards for that prop tonight and he’s topped that in four of his last six games without this expected workload increase – with one of the misses being 13 yards on the number. Overall, I’m not sure I could really trust this Cowboys team enough to bet on them but I think this game could play a bit closer than the public expects.
Touchdown Prediction: Kavontae Turpin
Per usual, I will avoid chalk picks when predicting touchdowns so why not take a longshot on Turpin? Fun fact: the last time the Cowboys scored a touchdown on their home field was September 22nd…that touchdown was a reception from Kavontae Turpin. Given how the team has struggled offensively, I would expect them to pull out everything they have if they can get into the red zone and Turpin can get the ball on a catch or a carry. He also returns kicks providing added upside.
Written by Ben Hossler