NFC Wild Card Game One Dallas Cowboys @ LA Rams NFC East v NFC West
Despite being fairly regular postseason participants in the past these two sides have managed but a handful of playoff wins between them recently (6 since 2000) and in the Rams case, they are looking for their first January win since 2004. Like the earlier AFC Divisional game, this features two of the leagues brighter young quarterbacks in Dak Prescott and Jared Goff, and throw in two of the best running backs in Ezekiel Elliot and Todd Gurley and it should be a classic. However, they both have stout defences so don’t be surprised if this is a little lower scoring than expected.
The Rams are strong favourites for this one and their sole home loss was to the NFC no one seeds New Orleans and both their road losses came against teams who made the postseason. Their squad is full of Allpro stars and although they have less playoff experience than Dallas, last season should have taught them a lot. Their average age is also higher too.
Dallas finished strongly to make the postseason and had a nice win against the saints amongst their 10 regular season wins. They had a hard game against Seattle last week only just scraping home and although we expect them to compete they are not the same side on the road and the oddsmakers have them as 7 point underdogs. They have a couple of injury problems on offence given Allen Hurns is definitely out and Cole Beasly is far from fully fit. The Rams will come in pretty much at full strength.
Overall it is hard to see Dallas with injuries winning this one on the road and we think that the Rams may even cover the spread.
Score prediction LA Rams 24 Dallas 16