Dak Prescott makes his return when the Dallas Cowboys host the Denver Broncos on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
Prescott missed Dallas' last game on Sunday Night Football against the Minnesota Vikings. Despite making his first career NFL start, fill-in Cooper Rush played admirably and the Cowboys won 20-16.
The team's franchise quarterback will return this week to take on the Broncos.
Dallas is having one of their best seasons in recent memory and have all but locked up the NFC East title with more than half the season to go.
Dallas is No. 3 in the NFL in offensive DVOA and No. 6 in the NFL in defensive DVOA, according to Football Outsiders.
They have weapons at almost every major offensive skill position and have perhaps the best cornerback in the league in Trevon Diggs.
The Broncos, meanwhile, have come up cold after starting the season 3-0. They've scored an average of just over 16 points per game since, going 1-4 and putting up a yards per game mark in the bottom quartile of the NFL.
Denver still has a chance to make the playoffs, though, especially in the dingy doldrums of the AFC. The No. 7 seed will probably only need eight or nine wins to sneak in.
Their odds of doing so are +225 at DraftKings.
The Cowboys are favored by 10 points at PointsBet and bettors have been favoring the Dallas spread.
About 60% of the money is on Dallas to win by at least 10 points on Sunday.
And bettors are hammering these three game props heading into this week's contest.
Broncos v. Cowboys Most Popular Game Props
- The team that scores first will win the game (-220)
- The first drive of the game will result in a touchdown (+260)
- The Cowboys will score in each quarter (+105)
The above data is provided by PointsBet.
The Cowboys have scored first in five of their seven games this season and won all of them.
Dallas' only loss of the season came in the NFL's opening game on Sept. 9, which they lost by two to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs scored first in that contest.
Meanwhile, the Broncos are 3-1 in games in which they score first.
That eight of nine rate between the teams imply the odds for this line should be around -750.
Still, that's a very loose statistical analysis of just this season's games — admittedly, a skewed and incredibly small sample size. But there seems to be value on this line if you're comfortable with juice.
This second prop I simply wouldn't wager on. It's completely dependent on the coin flip and who receives the ball — if the Broncos receive the ball, I'd put the odds that they score on their first drive at somewhere around +400.
If the Cowboys receive the ball first, the odds would be around +175.
Regardless, there's too little value here to bet on this one in particular. Pass.
The Cowboys have fulfilled the third-most popular prop five out of their seven games this season.
That rate implies odds of -250.
I think there's great value on this one at its current price.
