• Who's Favored To Win The Lions Game
• Who Will Win Cowboys Or Lions Play
• Who Will Win Cowboys Or Lions

Week 1 is always the most difficult week of the season to predict. We saw none of the 32 teams play a single preseason game, training camp access and information was limited, and there is a boatload of new faces in new places.

“The Lions have failed to cover their last four, and they give up 45% third-down conversions. That is one of the worst in football,” said Hartstein. “The Cowboys convert 51%, the highest in.

• Yahoo Sports and Shutdown Corner decide the winners of key matchups as the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys face off in Week 16.
• Get the best Detroit Lions vs. Dallas Cowboys picks for NFL. Free betting picks posted by the bettingexpert community.

What we do know is that the Rams and Cowboys should be highly entertaining with both teams boasting stars on offense and defense, Pro Bowl quarterbacks and outstanding receiving corps. The Cowboys are favored by 2.5 points on the road in an empty SoFi Stadium, and the experts are mostly leaning Dallas’ way, too.

According to NFL Pick Watch, which tracks expert predictions from across the internet, 65% of the experts are picking the Cowboys to win outright, with the other 35% taking L.A. When factoring in the spread, the split gets much closer.

Only 57% of experts are taking the Cowboys to cover a 3-point spread, meaning they’re not overly confident it’ll be a wide margin of victory for Dallas.

Among those taking the Rams to win outright on Sunday are Mike Jones of USA TODAY, Kevin Seifert of ESPN and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com.

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By now we all know the NFC East has had a dreadful year, as all four teams have been embarrassingly bad 11 weeks into the season.

Just look at what happened Sunday — the Eagles lost to the Browns and fell to 3-6-1 but still held onto to the top spot in the division.

At 3-6-1!

The Cowboys and Washington, meanwhile, both got big wins (any wins by any of these bad teams have to be considered big wins) to move to 3-7 and sit tied with the Giants (who are on a bye week) for second place in the division.

Who's Favored To Win The Lions Game

It’s ugly, all of it. There’s no debating that.

But here’s the deal – the winner of this division will have nothing to apologize for when they clam a spot in the playoffs and some other team in the NFC does not.

Why?

Because the other teams fighting for playoff spots in the NFC stink and won’t deserve a spot in the postseason because they wouldn’t do anything if they got there, anyways.

Before Sunday night I thought the winner of the NFC East should do the right thing and bow out of the playoffs and let a better team go. But then I saw the NFC playoff picture and realized the NFC is bad. Like, really bad. Just look at the teams that are “In The Hunt.”

The Bears are in the top spot of that group with a 5-5 record that doesn’t come close to telling their story. They’ve lost four straight games and don’t have anything that resembles a good option at quarterback. They don’t deserve to go the playoffs.

The Vikings are 4-6 and let the Cowboys come back and get a road win on Sunday. They will have nothing to say if the Cowboys or some other NFC East team makes the playoffs.

The 4-6 Detroit Lions are the Detroit Lions. Enough said.

The 4-6 49ers have their whole team on injured reserve for the rest of their season.

So who would you plug in to the playoffs if you could take the NFC East winner out of it?

Nobody.

Because the rest of those teams are are just as bad and not deserving of anything that would be seen as a reward.

Who Will Win Cowboys Or Lions Play

Also, I think the Cowboys are going to win the NFC East.

Quick hits: Everyone laughed at the Jets again… Smith-Schuster’s weird injury… UFC fighter rolls with Beyonce song mixup… And more.

– Everyone had a good laugh at an awful roughing the passer penalty that Jets DE Nathan Shepherd committed on Sunday. I mean, this thing was so Jets.

– Steelers WR JuJu Smith-Schuster seemed to hurt his ankle after stepping on a penalty flag, which isn’t ideal.

Who Will Win Cowboys Or Lions

– UFC fighter Mike Perry had the wrong walk-out song played before his fight on Saturday night but he totally rolled with it, belting out Beyonce’s “Halo” on his way to the Octagon.

– Saints coach Sean Payton had a savage retweet after Taysom Hill led New Orleans to a win over the Falcons on Sunday.

– You have to see this legend of a man who saved his puppy from an alligator while not dropping his cigar.