Light on the Aaron Rodgers-related news in here today, you can get that elsewhere. It’s been one day and I’m already sick of the circus. We’ll stick to the basics: gambling on TNF and adding futures to an already overflowing portfolio.

Market

Cowboys money showed right off the bat. This opened at a juicy -7 or -7.5 flat and was out to -9 by Monday morning, continuing to push up a little as the week went by, not finding some buyback at -9.5. This one is all over the board, so please do some shopping.

The total initially saw a little action to the under, dropping to 46.5 off an opener of 47. Over money on Tuesday and Wednesday pushed it back and up to the current 47.5 that we’re seeing now.

Injuries

The Cowboys had everyone on the injury report practice in full on Wednesday, meaning Micah Parsons, Rico Dowdle, and Dante Fowler should be good to go tonight. They did make one adjustment regarding their injured TE:

For Seattle: G Phill Haynes is ruled out, with Kenneth Walker and Dareke Young listed as doubtful.

DE Leonard Williams, TE Will Dissly, and WR Dee Eskridge are all listed as questionable. Eskridge hasn’t practiced all week, so he seems less than likely to be active tonight but Dissly and Williams were FULL participants in practice on Wednesday

Maybe the biggest news is that offensive tackle Abe Lucas practiced in full again and is without a status. Now, the team would have to activate him from the IR, but it does look fairly likely that the RT will be back to solidify the offensive line in front of Geno tonight.

Matchup

The Seahawks may be in a spot of bother here. It sucks that we’ll end up with yet another week of not really understanding if the Cowboys are a contender in the grand scheme of things or not with another weak opponent. I’m hoping to see a little better performance out of the Seahawks just to help evaluate where we are with Dallas.

I will say, soft schedule or not, the offense is humming and if they stay healthy one of the biggest weaknesses right now for the other NFC powers (DET, SF, PHI) is pass coverage. The Playoffs could be quite fun (after the wild card weekend blowouts).

Geno has been getting sacked too much, and getting the ball out too slowly. An organization that’s prided itself as a strong running team isn’t running very well at all right now. I don’t expect them to fix all or maybe any of these tonight, on the road versus a tough defense, but if anything maybe it’s a spot where they can extend drives a bit with a decent day from RB Zach Charbonnet.

Dallas has one of the worst defensive rushing success rates in the league, and while it’s not getting gashed for long explosive runs as much as the truly bad run defenses, they are susceptible to a well-put-together run scheme. If Geno sucks, this game is a laugher no matter what, but it does feel like some well-timed run plays can help keep him out of the third and longs that will have a dangerous pass rush coming.

In the end, it’s tough for me to see a ton of ways for Seattle to keep this one close, if Dallas doesn’t make big mistakes, they should move the ball easily. Seattle is 27th in opponent 3rd down conversion rate and 29th in opponent red zone percentage. A clean game from Dallas and they pick their number, I may have to go see what a Cooper Rush Anytime TD bet pays.

Score Prediction: Seattle 21 - Dallas 32

Betting

I took an over in this one, I think Dallas should continue to be hyper-efficient on offense and there’s even a chance I’m in some sort of position to play for a middle at halftime if the 2H total is over-adjusted. Not a true TNF game in the sense that the teams both played on Thanksgiving and aren’t trying to slap a game plan together in 3 days coming off a Sunday game. Perhaps a mistake to not just take the Dallas TT over, we’ll find out in 12 hours.

Seahawks/Cowboys over 47.5 -105

Betting the Playoff Races

Updated numbers again this morning, ran 2000 simulations to get the nice-looking data viz, and started shopping.

Seeding/playoff probabilities

Win Total Projections

I won’t get too deep in the weeds with narratives and reasons. These are 100% based on what my power numbers say the odds of these teams making the playoffs this year after 2000 simulations. Most of the power ratings are based on data, but there is some subjectivity when it comes to injuries, QBs, coaching changes, travel, etc.

If you want to give the simulator a try, you can find it here. Free, courtesy of Christopher Davis.