:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/4127251/156983557.0.jpg)
A lot has changed since the Eagles and Cowboys last met.
In Week 10 when Dallas came into Philadelphia, the Eagles were still had some playoff hope coming off of their loss to the New Orleans Saints. The bottom had not yet fallen out from the team, and the line for the game reflected that. The Eagles were underdogs by just 2.5 points going into the Sunday afternoon matchup.
Three losses later, however, Vegas has officially given up on the Eagles.
A look at the football spreads for this weekend show that Andy Reid and his team enter the week as 10 point underdogs against the Cowboys, over 7 points higher than they were just a few weeks ago. The 10 point spread is the largest margin any team is favored by this weekend, with the closest line being the Miami Dolphins giving 9 points to the New England Patriots.
To put that into perspective, the Eagles started this season as 9 point favorites over the lowly Cleveland Browns, and are now 10 point dogs to the Dallas Cowboys.
The large spread is also a very different line than the Eagles have been given week by week throughout the season. Besides the Eagles opening game in Cleveland, the largest spread for an Eagles game has been 5 points (the team’s game against the Steelers). Of the Eagles 11 games this year, the lines have been no higher than 3.5 going either way in 9 of them. That shows that Vegas really did not know what to make of the team, but by making the Eagles 10 point underdogs against the Cowboys the message is now clear- and it isn’t a positive one.
If you took the Eagles with the points in every game this year, you would have lost your money 10 out of 11 times.
Of course, Vegas giving the Eagles virtually no shot to win the game on Sunday does not mean Nick Foles and company can’t pull off the upset . Are the Eagles a smart bet this weekend? Given the fact that they have not covered in 10 out of 11 games this year, the easy answer is no. The lost to Dallas by 15 three weeks ago, and have lost 4 of their last 5 games by 10 points or more.
Meaning that not only might it be smart to root against your favorite team, it also might be smart to bet against them.
Follow Eliot Shorr-Parks on Twitter at @EliotShorrParks