New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys Preview and Pick

In what is already a big game with division title and playoff implications, the New York Giants head to the Lone Star State to take on the Dallas Cowboys on ESPN’s Monday Night Football tonight.

Thanks to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 23-21 upset of the Philadelphia Eagles Sunday afternoon, New York and Dallas enter this game tied for first place in the NFC East, a half-game ahead of Philly.

The Giants are 2-1 both straight up and against the spread on the road this season. But look at how they got there; New York trailed the Eagles 24-7 in the 4th quarter before pulling off that improbable rally and winning in overtime. The Giants also trailed the Seahawks in Seattle 35-0 before tacking on a bunch of meaningless points in a 42-30 loss. And N.Y. fell behind the Falcons 14-3 in Atlanta last week before coming back to score the last 24 points of that game in a 27-14 Giants victory.

But New York will not want to fall too far behind Dallas Monday night. The Cowboys are 2-0 both SU and ATS at home this season, beating the Washington Redskins 27-10 a month ago and the Houston Texans 34-6 last week.

Dallas did, however, stumble through the first half last week, and trailed 6-3 going into the locker room. The Pokes woke up, though, and outscored Houston 31-0 in the second half.

These two teams split their two games last season, both holding serve on their home fields. The Cowboys won 16-13 in OT in Dallas, while the Giants won 17-10 at The Meadowlands. The Pokes outrushed New York 92-91 in the first game, and the G-Men outgained Dallas on the ground 127-81 in the second game. Both games easily stayed below their posted totals of 47 and 40.

Thanks in large part to their top-ranked run defense, the Cowboys are outrushing their opponents this season by a 152-67 yards-per-game average.

Thanks to the great Tiki Barber, New York is outrushing opponents this season by a 152-114 YPG margin.

Dallas ranks 2nd in the NFL with a 32:30 time-of-possession average.

The Giants rank 11th with a 30:46 TOP average.

Third down has been pretty good to the Cowboys this season. The offense ranks 5th with a 42% 3rd-down conversion rate, and the defense ranks 3rd by holding opponents to a 28% success rate.

New York ranks right behind Dallas with a 42% 3rd-down conversion rate on offense, but the defense ranks 3rd-worst in the league by allowing opponents to convert at an alarming 50% rate.

Giants QB Eli Manning has hit on 65% of his passes this season and owns a 12/8 TD/INT ratio and an 89.6 passing rating. He did, however, rack up a lot of numbers going up against prevent defenses late in those games against the Eagles and the Seahawks.

Cowboys QB Drew Bledsoe has been his typical hit-and-miss self this season, completing 58% of his passes for a 10/8 TD/INT ratio and an 80.8 passers rating.

These two teams have played two common opponents so far this season. New York, as mentioned above, rallied to beat the Eagles in Philly 30-24 in OT, and the Giants beat Washington 19-3 two weeks ago. On the other side, Dallas fell at Philadelphia 38-24 two weeks ago (although, if you’ll remember, they had a chance to tie the game in the waning moments before a Bledsoe toss was picked off and returned for a TD), and the Pokes soundly beat the Redskins 27-10 a month ago.

The Sagarin PREDICTOR ratings at USAToday.com rank Dallas 3rd at 27.4, New York 4th at 26.6.

The O/U is 2-2-1 in Giants games this season, 3-1-1 in Cowboys games.

The line on this game has moved very little since opening up with Dallas as three-point home chalk with a total of 45. Cowboys backers, though, are giving up more than the average grease, around –120, at most sportsbooks .