Cowboys-Texans betting lines and point spread updates for ‘Sunday Night Football’

Prior to Sunday 1 p.m. kickoffs, sportsbook operator William Hill released numbers on percentage of tickets bet and percentage of money wagered on each game. The public is betting just slightly more on the Texans. 51 percent of all tickets placed and 52 percent of all money wagered is on Houston. Even though it’s a primetime game, it has the smallest percentage of tickets and the second smallest percentage of wagers for Week 5 Sunday action.

SB Nation’s team sites are running weekly FanPulse polls to assess what a focus group of fans thinks about their team. One question is whether the team will win or lose, and by how much. We can set that against the spread to check out their accuracy week-over-week. The MNF spread has the Texans as a field goal favorite. Texans fans are predicting a three point win, while Cowboys fans are predicting a two point win. Neither team has been overly impressive, but even factoring in a little homerism, we are seeing two fan bases that are not confident in their squad.

The NFL is a quarter of the way through the season for 30 of 32 teams, and we get a less than stellar matchup in Week 5 Sunday Night Football. The 1-3 Houston Texans host the 2-2 Dallas Cowboys in a game between two teams that struggled to beat bad teams late in Week 4.

The line opened with the Texans installed as a 3.5 point favorite, but the line is settling between that and a field goal, according to sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark. The point total is 45. The slight edge in public money early in the week has been on Houston following their overtime win over the Indianapolis Colts. Houston just avoided a tie thanks to a poorly executed fourth down play by the Colts that set the Texans up in position to get the game-winning field goal.

Both defenses in this matchup have shown some signs of life, but the primetime spotlight will be on Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott and Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson. Elliott was quiet out of the gates, but has exploded the past two weeks, rushing for 279 yards at a 6.8 yards per carry clip. Watson has been up and down with turnovers, throwing an interception in each of the first four weeks. However, he has surpassed 350 yards passing each of the past two weeks, and 300 yards each of the past three weeks.

Both teams are 1-3 against the spread through the first quarter of the season. The Texans are 0-1 ATS at home, while the Cowboys are 0-2 ATS on the road. The most notable ATS stat is that the Texans are 1-8 ATS in their last nine games.