NFL Week 14 Betting – Still-Kicking Cowboys Visit Packers

Dallas Cowboys at Green Bay Packers (-7, 42.5 o/u)

The Green Bay Packers (8-4, 4-2 Home) remain atop the NFC North thanks to an improbable Hail Mary. With the Vikings losing to the Cardinals on Thursday and falling to 8-5, the Pack now have a chance to consolidate their lead atop the division when the Dallas Cowboys (4-8, 3-3 Away) come to Lambeau on Sunday (Dec. 13 at 4:25 PM Eastern).

Green Bay looked like a former heavyweight champ that had lost a step last week, struggling to move the ball against the Lions for the better part of four quarters and falling behind 20-0. But, just like an aging champ is wont to do, the Packers used their veteran savvy to overcome a lack of explosiveness. Rodgers started using his running backs for checkdowns and worked tight end Richard Rodgers into the offense in the second half, putting Green Bay on the comeback trail.

It looked to be for naught, though, as they still trailed 23-21 with just six seconds to go and were holding the ball on their own side of the 50. But you know what happened next.

While the win was essential for a Packer team that had lost three of four coming in, head coach Mike McCarthy knows that his squad has a lot to fix going forward.

“We’re an 8-4 football team that needs to [be] better at the little things,” McCarthy told the Associated Press this week. “We’re not as detailed as we’d like to be right now.”

Rodgers, arguably the best QB in the league, has actually been part of the problem. The two-time MVP is completing only 54.9-percent of his passes in his last five outings, and has tossed an interception each of the last two weeks. Part of that can be chalked up to a depleted receiving corps that’s down top-target Jordy Nelson. But that argument gets less convincing when you see what Tom Brady has been able to do in New England throwing to the likes of Keshawn Martin and Scott Chandler.

This week, Rodgers and his roster of rotten receivers will meet a Dallas secondary that ranks fifth against the pass (222 passing yards per game). The unit was able to hold Washington QB Kirk Cousins to 219 yards and one major last weekend as Dallas picked up its first win of the year without starting QB Tony Romo (19-16). The win moved the Cowboys to within one game of first in the horrid NFC East. With two divisional games still left on the schedule, the squad still has a decent chance at a postseason berth and a home playoff game (which ought to prompt the league to seriously consider changes to the postseason format).

Green Bay will likely try to establish the run game early and lean heavily on RB Eddie Lacy, who should be awfully fresh. Lacy didn’t play much against the Lions because he missed his curfew the night before.  The team had to be sorely disappointed in Lacy’s antics as he finally looked to be turning a corner on the season. The maligned and seemingly over-weight back had rushed for over 100 yards in each of the two previous games (against the Vikings and Bears).

With Matt Cassel at QB, the Cowboys will want to pound the ball on the ground as well.

“You want to reduce [Cassel’s] burden as much as you can by running the ball better and [having] guys [make] plays around him and then doing what you can do on defense and the kicking game to … alleviate the burden from the offense and the quarterback,” head coach Jason Garrett stated this week.

Running back Darren McFadden has had a resurgence with in Dallas this year. (Actually, I suppose he’s just had a surgence. “Resurgence” implies that he was a productive back at some point in the past.) Long considered a complete draft bust, McFadden is putting up his best numbers since a statistically anomalous 2011 season with the Raiders. The former Razorback has 687 yards and three majors on 128 carries, despite opposing defenses frequently stacking the box against him (knowing that Cassel isn’t much of a passing threat).

Significant betting trends: Dallas has averaged just 13 points per game in Cassel’s last three starts and is just 1-4 ATS in their last five against teams with a winning record. Green Bay hasn’t lost back-to-back home games since 2006 and is 5-1 ATS in their last six as a 3.5-to-10-point favorite. They’ve also been clutch late in the season, going 18-8 ATS in their last 26 games in December.

Pick: Packers -7.

(Photo credit: Mike Morbeck [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped from its original.)