🕊️ Pigeon Picks | Vol. 1, No. 5

The first Sunday Night Football game of the 2023 NFL season will be the stage for our Cowboys vs. Giants prediction.

This is a prime time game, so this Pigeon Pick is open to ALL subscribers. To get full predictions for every Week 1 game, and every other week, upgrade your subscription to Pigeon Picks and the model that hit 67% of the time in 2022 on over 300 bets, with a 91% ROI. Also receive:

Cowboys vs. Giants Picks | Week 1 Sunday Night Football

• Spread

  • Giants +3.5 (-120*)

  • *NOTE: The Giants covering the spread is at minus odds, meaning they are considered favorites by the books to cover the 3.5 point spread, while the Cowboys odds of covering -3.5 is at +100.

• Moneyline

  • Giants +150

• Dutching

  • N/A (To be added when odds for winning margins are released)

**Cowboys vs. Giants Odds provided by PointsBet
** All Pigeon Picks bets tracked at Pikkit

Cowboys vs. Giants Final Score Prediction

• Cowboys 22, Giants 23

The spread is 3.5 points, and while the Giants are underdogs, they are favored to cover the spread with -120 odds to do so. Since the Pigeon picks model predicts Giants 1-point victory, taking them to also cover the spread is a no brainer.

Remember, Week 1 is the toughest week of the season to predict as we haven’t seen these teams in this season’s game environment yet. Beware of the risk involved and bet accordingly.

Cowboys vs. Giants Behavior Prediction

To make this Cowboys vs. Giants prediction, we considered the behavioral profiles of each of the teams. This included looking at their 2022 behavioral trends, the environmental changes each team went through in 2022, and the off season, as well as any potential impact those changes could have on future behavior.

Giants Offense vs. Cowboys Defense

Daniel Jones Is On The Rise

For this Cowboys vs. Giants prediction, we look back to 2022. In 2022, the Giants offense had an average SBx of 0.7 points scored per minute of possession time. That ranked them 13th in the NFL. However, that does not tell the whole story.

While the Giants were remarkably consistent week to week with a x1.7 bounce rate, they were an offense trending in the right direction. in fact, week over week, the Giants offense was scoring more efficiently at a 6% improvement rate week over week.

Based on Time Of Possession projections, that is .1 difference between their season average and their celeration trend is worth 3.3 points over the course of a full game. Or said another way, basically the point spread in this Week 1 game.

More than that, the question has been about the continued development of Daniel Jones. Thankfully, we were able to see him in Preseason Week 2. He opened the game with a 10 play, 75 yard drive in which he went 8-9 for 69 yards and a touchdown. Not to shabby. It was his best preseason performance under Brian Daboll to date. And by the way, Saquon Barkley did not have a single carry on the drive.

Daniel Jones and Josh Allen, whom Daboll coached in Buffalo, had remarkably similar seasons in their first full years being coached by Daboll.

In 2019, Allen threw for 20 touchdowns against only nine interceptions, while rushing for over 500 yards and an additional nine touchdowns.

In 2022, Jones threw for 15 touchdowns and only five interceptions, while adding 7 rushing touchdowns on over 700 rushing yards.

It was 2022, Allen’s second full year in the Daboll offense where he exploded onto the scene, setting Bills passing records left and right, enroute to a 4000+ yard passing season and 13 wins.

Jones doesn’t need to have that massive of a jump for the Giants to continue ascending, and to win this game Week 1. But, if he continues to trend at the same pace as the rest of the Giants offense, he will help them to a victory Week 1 and beyond.

What About The Elite Cowboys Defense?

They were elite in 2022, on the whole. However, for this Cowboys vs. Giants prediction, the behavioral context matters.

They began to spring some leaks following their bye week. In fact, their score prevention behavior (SPBx) saw a 51% REGRESSION from prior to the bye week.

• In 8 games before the bye week, they had SPBx of 0.479 points allowed per minute of opponent possession time. That would have been by far the lowest SPBx in the league.

• In 10 games after the bye week, they had an SPBx of 0.721, a 51% regression from before the bye week.

Defining Matchup: Micah Parsons vs. Giants Tackles

Micah Parsons is having as dominant a training camp as any defensive player this offseason. He lines up everywhere, and as a pass rusher he has been unblockable. If the Giants cannot find a way to slow him down, especially Andrew Thomas, then it could be a long day.

But don’t forget, Thomas has become one of the best tackles in the NFL. This is why you have him.

Cowboys Offense vs. Giants Defense

 Dak Prescott Is The X-Factor

Duh. But we can actually quantify his value to the Cowboys ability to score points, as we make this Cowboys vs. Giants prediction.

In 2022, with Cooper Rush starting for the Cowboys due to a Dak injury over five games, the Cowboys had an average scoring behavior rate of 0.731 points per minute of possession time.

Dak returned to start the remaining 12 games, including the playoffs. The Cowboys saw a 39% improvement to their SBx, averaging 0.913.

There is a caveat, however. The Cowboys were seeing a ratheR sharp regression behaviorally over those 12 games. In fact, the Cowboys were averaging a 30% regression week over week in their SBx, greatly influenced by the showings in two of their final three games.

The trend shows that against top SPBx defenses, they were not as proficient.

• In the first six games back, Prescott faced defenses ranked 30th, 32nd, 26th, 15th, 28th, and 24th.

  • The Cowboys offense averaged an SBx of 1.26 against those teams.

• In the final six games, including playoffs, Prescott faces defenses ranked 19th, 7th, 11th, 16th, 8th, and 1st.

  • The Cowboys averaged and SBx of 0.75 against those teams.

Giants Defense

The Giants defense suffered their own regression following their bye week, though not as severe as the Cowboys, coming in at just 13%.

However, they did slow their rate of regression week over week from a 17% regression before the bye week, to only a 3% regression after.

That deceleration of regression represents an improvement of roughly 80%. If they can continue to carry that trend, coupled with the Cowboys trend, they could provide Dallas just enough trouble to win.

Bottom Line

The behavioral profiles of these teams shows that there is a reason the Giants, while underdogs to win, are favored to cover the 3.5 spread. The Pigeon Picks model has them winning outright by 1 point. The effectively stretched the spread for us to +4.5.

So us betting them to cover the spread was the move. As we always do, if the model says a team is going to win, we take them on the moneyline. We like our margin of error, and the odds (+150) say this bet is worth the risk.

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