NFL Week 12 Betting – Murray, Cowboys Hope to Run All Over Giants

Dallas Cowboys (-3, 47.5 o/u) at New York Giants

The Dallas Cowboys (7-3, 4-0 away) earned a week 11 bye after traveling to London to face the Jaguars in week 10. The Cowboys will be hoping that quarterback Tony Romo’s back benefitted from the time-off, as they travel to East Rutherford this Sunday  to face division rival New York Giants (3-7, 2-3 home) on Sunday Night Football (8:30 p.m. Eastern).

Romo’s health notwithstanding, the Cowboys’ offensive philosophy will likely be to ride running back DeMarco Murray. Murray leads the NFL in rushing and the Giants are dead-last in the NFL stopping the run; New York gives up 145 yards per game on average and, last week, gave up 148 to San Francisco at home, losing 16-10 and failing to cover as 3.5-point home dogs.

The Cowboys stopped a two-game losing streak in week 10, topping the Jaguars 31-17. With the win and an Eagles loss to the Packers in week 11, the Cowboys are now tied for top spot in the NFC East.

Tight end Jason Witten said the Cowboys’ success is tied to the fact the players are all coming together as a team.

He said, “I think this team’s done a really good job of doesn’t matter who, when, where. And that’s not talk. I really believe this team’s kind of bought into this is how we have to play. And when we do this we play well and when we don’t we get beat.”

After the Giants, the Cowboys will have a short week to get ready for the Eagles on Thursday Night Football in week 13.

While the Giants are out of the playoff hunt, they remain a motivated and dangerous team. They strung together three wins in a row earlier in the season, largely thanks to the play of running back Rashad Jennings. Jennings was subsequently injured and missed the better part of New York’s current five-game losing streak. He returned last week, but he and the rest of the Giants couldn’t overcome Eli Manning’s five interceptions against the 49ers.

Said Giants head coach Tom Coughlin, “You have a chance to win the game. Somebody make a play. Get the ball in the end zone and you win. I will remember that one. We are going to win one of those nail-biters.”

Even though all signs point to a Cowboys blowout, don’t be fooled: this game will be close. That said, Dallas (-3) is still the play.

(Photo credit: J-Ham2000 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)