DIVISIONAL PLAYOFF – Cowboys vs. Vikings
You have questions? The Cowboys have the answers. Momentum? Dallas has four straight wins coming into Sunday’s playoff game against the Vikings.
Stopping Adrian Peterson? Dallas is the No. 4-ranked team against the rush this season.
Time: Sunday 1:00 ET
Venue: Mall of America Field, Minneapolis
MoneyLine: Vikings -140 (-110) / Cowboys +120 (-110)
Spread: Vikings -3 (-100)
Over/Under: 46
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What about Favre? Only four teams had more sacks than the Cowboys did this year, and of the 8 teams still playing football, no defense is playing now with more confidence than Dallas’s is.
Winning on the road? Did you forget who ended the Saints’ season-long winning streak in New Orleans?
Yet the answer to the most important question of all (Is Dallas a much better team now than it was a month ago?) is a resounding yes. The late-season surge that catapulted the Cowboys into the Super Bowl conversation started with that victory over the Saints, then included back-to-back dominating wins over a big-play Philadelphia team.
The Vikings have had the luxury of a bye week, courtesy of a fast start, and they’ll now have to get their ducks back in a row. And those ducks are pretty good, starting with Adrian Peterson, whose 1,389 yards rushing come with a huge asterisk (6 fumbles lost). If Peterson can keep the ball off the artificial turf on Sunday, the Vikings will breathe a huge sigh of relief.
Stopping Peterson is Job One for the Boys, because the rest of the Minnesota offense works off the running game. But there are other weapons – rookie Percy Harvin is a threat to score every time he touches the ball, and Sidney Rice has developed into one of the top receivers in the NFC (83 catches).
And Brett what’s-his-name has fooled just about everyone by staying both healthy and effective. Favre has benefitted from having great offensive players around him, a defense that can dominate a game and a schedule that wasn’t particularly challenging. But the numbers don’t lie, and the numbers say he threw 33 TD passes and only 7 interceptions. That added up to a 107 QB rating, second in the NFL.
The quarterback comparison will be intriguing. At 40 Favre likes nothing better than to run around and make plays, and last month that got him into trouble with Viking coach-in-name-only Brad Childress, who has the quaint notion that the plays sent in from the bench are the ones that Favre should run. Cut from the same cloth but more than a decade younger, Dallas’s Tony Romo also loves to throw on the run, and Cowboys coach Wade Phillips has no problem with that.
The betting line opened at Minnesota -3 and hasn’t budged much, though some offshores and Vegas casinos are offering Vikings -2.5. The opening O/U at 47 has been dropped to 45.5 in some places to try to lure more wagers on the high side.
Pick: Vikings
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Lawrence Paul is a regular contributor to the Cappers Picks Blog, and is a free-lance gambling and travel expert from Massachusetts.
