Monday night's matchup has the potential to get ugly. The Houston Texans have one of the best pass defenses in the league, and they'll take on Cooper Rush, who's struggled since taking over for Dak Prescott. Is there any reason to be optimistic about Rush, and what does his being under center mean for the Dallas Cowboys' receivers? And on the other side of the ball, what is the best prop for Joe Mixon as he prepares for a juicy matchup?
Here are the best PrizePicks plays for Monday Night Football between the Houston Texans and the Dallas Cowboys.
Get instant alerts when a line reaches your target via the BettingPros App >>
Monday night's matchup has the potential to get ugly. The Houston Texans have one of the best pass defenses in the league, and they'll take on Cooper Rush, who's struggled since taking over for Dak Prescott. Is there any reason to be optimistic about Rush, and what does his being under center mean for the Dallas Cowboys' receivers? And on the other side of the ball, what is the best prop for Joe Mixon as he prepares for a juicy matchup?
Here are the best PrizePicks plays for Monday Night Football between the Houston Texans and the Dallas Cowboys.
Get instant alerts when a line reaches your target via the BettingPros App >>
Mixon is going to have a huge night. The Cowboys have the second-worst rush defense in the league, allowing 152.1 yards per game. Mixon has rushed for over 100 yards this season in five of his seven games. He had a terrible night last week, but in a much better matchup, taking him to go Over his rushing total of 87.5 yards is a solid play.
However, the best Mixon prop for Monday night is for him to run the ball more than 21.5 times. He's run the ball at least 24 times in four consecutive games, and he's carried the ball at least that many times in five of his seven games this season. There's always a chance that Mixon breaks off huge runs against the Cowboys’ defense, but in a game that should be very one-sided, he's still going to carry the ball plenty, even if he sits in the fourth quarter.
Rush has not played well at all this season. Last week, he finished just 13-of-23 for 45 yards, an average of just 2.0 yards per passing attempt. The performance came against the third-ranked pass defense of the Philadelphia Eagles, so perhaps he will perform better in friendlier matchups. Unfortunately for Rush, Monday's game doesn't feature a friendly matchup.
The Texans have the fourth-best pass defense in the league, allowing just 174.7 passing yards per game. The Texans will likely lead by a lot in this game, which means more attempts for Rush. However, Rush hasn't been able to do much of anything with his attempts this season. He has two games with 23 or more attempts, and he's yet to throw for more than 115 yards in either of those contests.
Despite very little faith in Rush on Monday, this number is set too low for Tolbert. He's caught at least three passes in every game this season except Week 1. Even dealing with Rush's poor performance last week, Tolbert caught three of the five passes thrown his way.
I don't expect Tolbert to pick up very many yards. After all, he's gone for fewer than 20 yards in each of his last two games. However, he's still the third-most targeted player on the Cowboys, and he's been targeted 11 times by Rush over the last two weeks. The Texans are allowing just 16.7 completions per game, the fewest in the league, but with the Cowboys playing from behind, Rush will target Tolbert plenty, and Tolbert will top this number just as he's done all year.
Phil Wood is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Phil, check out his archive and follow him @Phil_Wood_Jr.
