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Our collection of national experts is predicting a high-scoring game on Sunday, but did they factor in the weather?
The Cowboys are riding a three-game streak of games in which they've scored 30 or more points. The Commanders meanwhile haven't scored more than 27 points in any of their six games this year.
And oddly, those seem to be the default numbers for most of our expert panelists this week: three of the five experts predicting a Cowboys win have the Cowboys scoring 30 or more points, while four of the five experts predicting a Commanders win have the Commanders scoring 27 or more points.
But will either team approach those kinds of scoring totals given the expected weather conditions?
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Both teams will likely be better served running the ball a lot in those conditions, but that may not keep them from running up the scores. Vegas currently has the Over/Under for the game at 49, the highest total of any game this weekend.
Seven of the nine score predictions below from our panel of experts have the combined score exceeding 49 points.
Are you taking the over or the under on those 49 combined points?
La Times (Farmer): Cowboys 31, Commanders 23
Injuries are starting to take their toll on the Commanders in a big way. Kirk Cousins will be playing behind a patchwork line that has four original starters hurt. Not good against a blitzing team.
The Commanders are playing on a short week, but the Cowboys are playing consecutive road games. Dallas looked like the Dallas we expected to see against the 49ers. The Commanders have offensive line injury issues. The Cowboys will get after Kirk Cousins. Dallas wins it.
Both teams are looking way up at the Eagles in the NFC East, and the loser has a long, difficult path as midseason approaches. Knowing well in advance that Ezekiel Elliott is available will help the Cowboys. Possibly being down two key offensive linemen (Trent Williams, Brandon Scherff) does Washington no good. Neither does the fact that the Cowboys have won four straight in Washington, including Dak Prescott's first career win last season.
This is always a fun matchup. The Cowboys swept this series last year. In the first game, Kirk Cousins' failures in the red zone became a talking point on sports radio, while Dak Prescott used his legs and moxie to deliver a win. Meeting No. 2 came on Thanksgiving, when the Commanders racked up over 500 yards of offense but once again couldn't pay off drives. How Cousins fares versus the young Dallas secondary could determine the outcome, but methinks the Cowboys will lean on Ezekiel Elliott for at least 25 carries Sunday. Since Week 4, the Dallas offense has sprung to life, scoring 14 touchdowns while averaging 449.7 yards per game and 6.5 yards per play. All those figures are tops in the league in that span.
This game could be Ezekiel Elliott’s last one for quite some time, as he has a court hearing on Monday that could determine the fate of his six-game suspension. Elliott seemed to be buckling under the weight of the looming punishment at the start of the season, but he has looked like his old self in the last two weeks, and it is no coincidence that the Cowboys (3-3) have righted the ship along the way. At a glance, the Commanders (3-3) seem to have a good run defense, but they have allowed so few yards because teams have chosen not to run against them, which won’t be the case with Dallas in town.
This is the toughest game on the board to pick, and probably a must-win for one of these teams to have any hope of catching the Eagles in the NFC East. I see Kirk Cousins putting up a big game against the Cowboys’ defense and Washington bouncing back from a tough Monday night loss.
The Cowboys broke out of their offensive funk with 40 points at San Francisco, thanks to 219 scrimmage yards from Ezekiel Elliott. The Commanders have been able to score points, they just have to do a better job preventing them. But they have won their past two at home.
Commanders QB Kirk Cousins puts on a show and leads his team to outright victory.
Home-'dog hunch here, even though 'Skins are banged up on O-line and have dropped four straight at home to 'Boys in this NFC East grudge. Rolling with law of averages and gut feeling.
The Cowboys have beaten the Giants, the Cardinals, and the 49ers. Washington has lost to the Eagles twice and the Chiefs. Maybe Dallas isn’t as good as we thought, and maybe Washington is better.
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