On Christmas morn, whilst most folks were opening what Santa had left, the Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants line opened. And then it moved … a lot.
Last week's lookahead line of Giants -2.5 already cast a bit of doubt on the Cowboys' effort in Week 17, which won't matter as it turns out. They have already clinched the NFC East and cannot do better than the 4-seed.
Tuesday at 10:17 a.m. ET, the Giants opened at -3. By 10:41, the G-Men had moved to -7. So Dallas is definitely resting everyone, right? Well, don't tell that to Ezekiel Elliott.
Cowboys' Ezekiel Elliott: Taking week off vs. Giants 'not an option' #nyg#giants#cowboyshttps://t.co/3FzJRHcmDd
— Touchdown Wire (@TheNFLWire) December 26, 2018
Zeke makes it sound like the Cowboys won't be resting, but the books are preparing as if they will. Who do we trust?
The Giants, on the other hand, obviously have nothing to gain and would probably prefer losing to get a better draft pick. They've already announced Eli Manning will start, but not much is known other than that.
He could start and hand the ball over to Kyle Lauletta or Alex Tanney at some point in the game, which would probably be a wise thing to do.
The line has since fallen to NYG -6 across the market, but if the Cowboys plan on playing this one hard like Elliott believes they will, then we are in for some serious line movement toward Dallas in the near future.
Dak Prescott would be the most valuable of the Cowboys, coming in at about 3-4 points to the spread. Elliott may be worth up to a point, but no other individual players will move the spread on their own.
