Cowboys open as road favorites ahead of Week 10 trip to slumping Packers
The Dallas Cowboys are resting at home watching the NFL carry on without them. With a 6-2 record, they’ve lost a little ground on their bye week as the two teams with the best NFC records both won their games this week. Philadelphia (8-0) continued their undefeated stretch with a Thursday night win over the Houston Texans coming out of their own bye week. Minnesota (7-1) won over Washington with a last-second field goal.
Fortunately both teams Dallas is chasing for the No. 1 seed remain on their schedule, though the Cowboys would also need the Eagles to lose a separate game just to pull even. But before those matchups happen, Dallas starts the second half of their 2022 season with a road trip to Green Bay. Mike McCarthy will return home for the first time and he’ll get to face a struggling Aaron Rodgers-led Packers team which has last five in a row.
Opening Point Spread: Cowboys -4.5
Relying on Tipico’s odds, the Cowboys are road favorites, but not by much. Many people feel that home-field advantage is an automatic three points before a spread is adjusted for the quality of the team. That isn’t always the case. Based on historical trends, some team’s home-field advantage is adjusted up or down. Green Bay at Lambeau Field tends to have a greater advantage than most teams.
When reading spreads, the team that is favored is referred to as “giving points.” In other words, if the Cowboys were to give away 4.5 points, this game would be seen as an even match. The Cowboys are 4.5-point favorites, so in order to win a bet Dallas has to win by at least five points and conversely, if Green Bay loses by one-to-four points, or wins outright, a bet on the Packers is a winning one.
The Packers are referred to as +4.5.
Update: Just in writing this article the line moved to Dallas -5.
Spread History in 2022
The Packers were -2.5 in Week 9 traveling to Detroit and lost outright. That dropped their record against the spread (ATS) to 3-6 on the season. The last two times they’ve covered, they’ve barely done so. They were 10.5-point underdogs on the road to Buffalo in Week 8 and trailing by 17 when they scored with six minutes remaining in the game. In Week 3 they were 1.5-point dogs to the Buccaneers but won 14-12.
The Cowboys meanwhile are true to form. Sporting a 6-2 record, they are also 6-2 ATS this season with each result matching the spread prediction. Dallas failed to cover in Week 1 (+2.5, lost by 16) against Tampa Bay and also failed to cover Week 6 vs. the Eagles (+7, lost by 9). But in the games they’ve won, they’ve beaten the spread by 10, 8.5, 9, 17, 11 and 11.5.
The Cowboys have covered in a major way in their victories.
They've beat the Vegas spread by an average of 11 points in their six wins.
Vegas is really, really good at setting spreads, but Dallas has been a lot better than they've been getting credit for.
— KD Drummond (@KDDrummondNFL) November 6, 2022
Over/Under opens at 43.5
The Over/Under is the guesstimate of the total amount of points to be scored by both teams.
For instance if the final score of Sunday’s game ended up being 24-20, then an Over bet would win because 44 total points were scored. If the final score was 21-17, then the Under bet would win based on a total of 38 points being scored.
Over/Under History in 2022
The Packers’ totals in their nine games this year have been low-scoring affairs, failing to reach the projected total in six of them. Sunday may have been the worst of them all as the teams combined for just 26 points when the Over/Under was set at a whopping 49.5.
It’s a similar story for the Cowboys whose totals have been under in five of their eight games.
The Cowboys are hopefully trending upward with the return of Dak Prescott under center. After a rusty start in Week 7 against Detroit, Prescott and the Dallas offense has been on fire in the last six quarters, scoring 63 points (plus another defensive score).
Cowboys Money Line is currently set for -230 (Packers +180)
The Money Line is a simple win-or-lose bet. If someone thinks one team will win, but they don’t want to give or take any points, they bet on them “straight up.”
If someone bets on a favorite the ML will be negative, an underdog, positive. All bets are spoken of in terms of wagering an even $100.
So if someone were to wager $100 on the Packers to win outright, then they would get their $100 back, plus $180 in profit.
The Cowboys ML is set to -230. So it would take someone betting $230 in order win an additional $100.
