Dallas Cowboys vs. Los Angeles Rams Odds & Pick
Dallas Cowboys (0-1 SU, 0-1 ATS) vs. Los Angeles Rams (0-1 SU, 0-1 ATS), 8/17/19
Time: 10 pm ET Saturday, Aug. 17
Where: Aloha Stadium, Honolulu, H
TV: NFL Network
Point spread: Cowboys -2
Moneyline: Dallas -135/Rams +115
Over/Under: 40
It’s a rematch, of sorts, of an NFL divisional-round playoff game of a season ago when the Rams take on the Cowboys in an NFL exhibition Week 2 bout Saturday night in Honolulu. Neither team scored a touchdown in their pre-season openers last week, and points might be hard to come by this week, too. Read on to get our free pick and visit and bookmark our NFL Picks page for our full list of plays each week!
NFL Betting Odds
Week 2’s NFL exhibition betting odds opened Los Angeles at -3 over Dallas, with an over/under of 42 points. Early betting action then flipped the Cowboys into two-point favorites and dipped that total to 40.
Cowboys vs. Rams Set-Up
Dallas opened its 2019 exhibition season with a 17-9 loss at San Francisco last Saturday. The Cowboys scored the first six points of that game and led 9-7 through three quarters but lost the fourth quarter 10-0 and missed on the cover as three-point underdogs.
Dallas got out-gained by the Niners 339-294 and lost time of possession by a 34/26 split.
Starting quarterback Dak Prescott played the first series of the game last Saturday, hit on 4/4 passes for 23 yards, drove the Cowboys to a field goal, then sat the rest of the night. Back-ups Cooper Rush and Mike White then combined to go 25/46 for 229 yards, with zero interceptions.
Meanwhile the Dallas defense held the 49ers to a 4/12 performance on 3rd-down conversions.
Prescott might get in a couple series Saturday night, but that would be about it, and running back Ezekiel Elliot is still holding out. So we don’t expect too much out of the Cowboys offensively.
Los Angeles opened its exhibition season with a 14-3 loss at Oakland last Saturday. The Rams defense gave up a 70-yard Raiders touchdown drive on its first series of the game, and the LA offense never showed up, with starting quarterback Jared Goff watching from the sidelines.
On the night the Rams got out-gained by Oakland 407-190, got out-rushed 149-57, gave up 36 first downs while only making 18 and lost time of possession by a 35/25 split.
In other words Los Angeles looked pretty disinterested.
In place of Goff back-ups Blake Bortles, John Wolford and Brandon Allen combined to go 15/28 passing for 138 yards, with zero picks.
Goff should see some action Saturday night, but probably not much. The back-ups will again man that post for the most part.
As mentioned above these teams just met back in January in an NFC divisional-round playoff bout, a 30-22 Rams victory at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Dallas actually led that game early 7-3 but LA used a 20-0 run spanning the halves to take control. The Rams covered that night as seven-point favorites and the game played over a total of 48.
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NFL Betting Trends
Dallas is just 12-22 SU, 12-21-1 ATS over eight-plus exhibition seasons under Coach Garrett, which gives us some idea as to how he approaches these games.
Los Angeles is 4-5 both SU and ATS in two-plus exhibition seasons under Coach McVay.
Totals Report
- The Cowboys loss to the 49ers last week played under a total of 37.
- The Rams loss to the Raiders never approached its total of 36.
- However, overs played 9-7-1 in Week 1 (plus the Hall of Fame game) of this exhibition season, as the games averaged 41 points against an average over/under of 36. This week the average over/under sits at right around 42.
Free NFL Pick
Neither of these offenses did much last week and even if Prescott and Goff play a few series we don’t expect a whole lot more Saturday night. Also, these teams will meet in Week 15 of the regular season, so they probably won’t get too deep into their offensive playbooks. We don’t know who’s going to win this game and we don’t care; we’re playing the under for our free NFL pick.
