MNF Best Bets Week 11: Cowboys-Texans, Nico Collins Return
Matt LaMarca breaks down the Week 11 Monday Night Football matchup featuring the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans, highlighting best bets and picks.
Matt LaMarca delivers the Monday Night Football Best Bets and picks for Dallas Cowboys vs. Houston Texans.
Monday Night Football for Week 11 looked a lot better on paper a few weeks ago. Still, who’s going to say no to an in-state rivalry? The Houston Texans will visit the Dallas Cowboys, and they’re listed as 7-point road favorites. The total in this contest sits at 41.5 points.
The Texans got off to a roaring start this season, winning five of their first six games. That said, they’ve come back to the pack a bit since then, dropping games against the Packers, Jets, and Lions in recent weeks. The good news is that they’ll get back Nico Collins, who has been a legit game-changer for their offense.
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Meanwhile, the Cowboys are going to have to play without their starting quarterback for the rest of the season. Dak Prescott has undergone season-ending surgery, leaving the team with virtually no shot of making the playoffs. It’s a big disappointment for a team that has won 12 games in each of the past three years.
Let’s dive into my favorite bets for Monday Night Football.
Houston Texans (-7.0) at Dallas Cowboys—41.5 total
With the Cowboys' season basically over, they become a tough team to handicap moving forward. Is this a team that is going to fight to the end, or are they going to waive the white flag early?
Personally, I’m more inclined to believe in the latter. These are professional athletes—some of which are playing for jobs in the future—but it’s just hard to get motivated when you’ve made it to the playoffs in the past and have no chance of doing so this season.
Cooper Rush will make his second start of the year in place of Prescott, and things did not go well for him in his first. He completed just 13 of his 25 passes for 45 yards, and he led the team to just two scoring drives.
That puts the Cowboys in an interesting spot. They know what they have in Rush, who is a decent backup quarterback. But they also have sitting on the bench Trey Lance, whom they acquired in a trade with the 49ers. Lance was famously the No. 3 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, so he has the talent to be an NFL quarterback. Whether or not he can actually do that remains to be seen, but the only way the Cowboys are going to find out is by playing him.
With that in mind, I don’t think it’s a lock that Rush will finish this game for Dallas, just like what happened last week vs. the Eagles. We’ll almost certainly see Lance again before the end of the season.
While Lance is dripping with potential, he has been unable to make it work at the NFL level. He hasn’t gotten a ton of opportunities—and most of them happened years ago—but he threw an interception in his limited game action last week.
Regardless of who is at quarterback for the Cowboys in this contest, I don’t expect a ton of production. That pushes me toward the under in this spot.
That said, I’m a bit wary of going with the full game under. The Texans getting Collins back in the lineup should reignite their passing game, which has been stagnant since he picked up a hamstring injury. There’s also a chance that Lance could turn the ball over a couple of times if he does get in the game, which would also put the Texans in position for points.
Instead, I’m just going to focus on the Cowboys. You can get Under 16.5 points for them at -112, and I’d rather fade them than the game itself.
The Pick: Cowboys Under 16.5 Points (-112; FanDuel)
Player Props for Monday Night Football
Cooper Rush Under 33.5 pass attempts (-125; BetMGM)
This goes hand-in-hand with my analysis of the game. If Rush plays the full game, it’s likely close. That means the Cowboys won’t necessarily have to throw the ball all that often. If this game does get out of hand, I expect Rush to get pulled for Lance. Either way, I like him to throw the ball less than 34 times.
Jalen Brooks Under 1.5 receptions (+120; BetMGM)
Brooks has seen an uptick in opportunities in recent weeks, but there are reasons to be bearish on him on Monday. In addition to the quarterback situation, the team also traded for Jonathan Mingo before the deadline. Mingo is expected to be active this week, and there’s no reason for the team not to throw him straight into the fire. The team also still has CeeDee Lamb and Jalen Tolbert, so Brooks could be pretty far down the pecking order.
Nico Collins 100+ receiving yards (+240; FanDuel)
Let’s go hunting for an alt line on Collins. Before getting injured, he had some of the best utilization in the entire league. He racked up a 29% target share and 45% air yards share in his first four games, and that was with Stefon Diggs in the lineup. Collins had more than 100 yards in three of those contests, and he had 10 targets in the lone exception. Ultimately, +240 feels a bit too generous.
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