NFL - Dallas (7-6) at Tampa Bay (4-9)

Sky Sports, December 18th, 1.20am

Another trappy game.

Unbelievably, last week the team dismantled by Atlanta early on Friday morning put 41 points on tonight’s home side. The Tampa Bay secondary is awful and even the return of Aqib Talib shouldn’t stem the flow of points. Romo is still a talented quarterback and he has a strong set of receivers to throw to, so he shouldn’t have much trouble putting up numbers. There’s not much of a pass rush to worry about as frankly the Bucs struggle to sack anyone.

Unfortunately for Tampa, as bad as their secondary is, their run defense is even worse. The loss of DeMarco Murray is a blow for Dallas, but Felix Jones looked dangerous last week, going over 100 yards against the Giants. Jones is no horse, but he’ll put up some yards from scrimmage, just because Tampa Bay are so horrible at stopping the run.

On offense, the Buccaneers have to stop giving the ball away (31 on the season, the most in the NFL) and getting penalised so much. Josh Freeman’s play has fallen away badly this season and he’s injured. He threw two picks last week and fumbled one away, taking his personal tally to a league leading 18 turnovers, and his lack of accuracy is likely to show up as Dallas bring everyone they can to pressure him -  look out for DeMarcus Ware. LeGarrette Blount is a fair runner, but the Dallas run defense is ok and if, as seems likely, Tampa fall behind, he tends to fade out of the offensive picture.

All this points to a pretty facile win for the Cowboys, but there are a number of reasons to be cautious: Dallas seem unable to kill off a team (the look on Jerry Jones’s face when Dallas blew last week’s game was priceless) and their record in December is poor. On the road this season, Dallas (who are 2-4)have played three overtime games and two others have been decided on scores in the final 30 seconds. Their pass defense is weak and they aren’t great in clutch situations and they need to be in this crucial game – the back door cover looms!

However, let’s show a little faith; Raheem Morris is all but gone and the Tampa organisation is thinking about the next step – Dallas have a chance, against a poor team, to keep their season alive, they just have to execute.

Pick: Cowboys -7 @ 1.91; -110; 10/11

Pick: 1st TD Miles Austin @ 9.0; 800; 8/1

Pick: Anytime TD Laurent Robinson @ 2.25; 125; 5/4

Pick: Felix Jones Total Rushing yards Under 95.5 @ 1.83; -120; 5/6