NFL Week 14 Thursday

COWBOYS @ LIONS - 8:15 PM

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Dak Prescott has played 6 career games against the Lions. Surprisingly, only one of these games was at Ford Field.

His only career start at Ford Field was in 2019 and he went nuts. It was actually a close game. Dallas won 35-27. This was the year Matt Stafford got injured and the Lions went 3-12-1. Jeff Driskel started at QB for Detroit.

This is officially the prove it game for Dallas. They beat the Raiders... who cares? Then they beat the Eagles which was big... but division upsets happen all the time. Jackson Dart beat the Eagles earlier this season. Last week's win was great against Kansas City. If Dallas wins this game, we officially have to consider this team to be a threat in the NFC.

They're playing a Detroit team that needs to win here badly.

This is basically a playoff game for the Lions. The NFC is so top-heavy... I don't think it's crazy to say 6 losses knocks you out of the running.

Now we are talking about Dan Campbell off a loss. The cover streak was broken cuz they didn't cover the number against Jameis Winston.... but they won the game. So the win streak is still alive.

And we're talking about a Dallas team that hasn't played nearly as well on the road this year. Remember, this recent surge for Dallas... the two big wins were at home. Their only two road wins this year are against the Jets and Raiders.

So can we count on Detroit's defense to make stops in this game?

Well it's not the Dallas offense that's had problems on the road this year... in fact, the offense has been fine.

It looks like they're gonna be without LT Tyler Guyton in this one.

Lions secondary is in bad shape.

Detroit's defensive front has to win these battles up front. They can probably limit Dallas on the ground and without Guyton, maybe they can generate some pressure on Dak.

If they don't get pressure on him, it's tough to see the defense making stops. You're gonna run man coverage and 1H safety looks, in a dome, against Ceedee Lamb and George Pickens?

Now I suppose there's a path to Dak playing poorly on the road. He's been much better at home throughout his career. We've seen it before.

Lions have gotten cooked through the air in back to back games.

But they were actually doing a solid job against the pass in the few games before that.

Now on the other side of the ball, this is quite the matchup. The injuries to the Lions offense are nuts... and this new Cowboys defense... is it good? We really don't even know yet.

Taylor Decker's fine and they might be getting Glasgow back at C which would be huge. But outside of that, I think Detroit's gonna be missing some of these guys. Sewell was downgraded to DNP on Tuesday. Amon-Ra St. Brown hasn't practiced and it doesn't look like he's gonna play. Looks like TE Brock Wright is gonna miss another game. LG Awosika is also questionable.

Meanwhile the Cowboys defense is in pretty good shape.

The thing with the Cowboys defense... do we think it's good? No question it's better.

But the Raiders have one of the worst offenses in the NFL. The Eagles just got shut down by the Bears defense in Philly. The Bears don't have a good defense. The Chiefs were lighting Dallas up.

And all these Detroit injuries. They didn't have these guys last week either. The offense was moving the ball on Green Bay. We trust Dallas to stop the run here because they stopped the Raiders and Eagles from running the ball?

Green Bay was able to hold the Lions run game in check... but let's not forget that the Lions run game was looking good as hell in the 3 games before that.

One aspect of this Dallas defense I do think we can trust a bit is the pass rush. They got off to a slow start but they've been generating consistent pressure... and we know Jared Goff struggles with pressure. I think we'll see Detroit run the ball and work Goff out of play-action. I think they'll actively keep Dak Prescott on the sideline.

As far as betting this game, I have no idea. I feel this could go several different ways. If you're asking me what I would bet, I'd say Lions -3 and under 54.5.