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The 49ers Open as 4.5-Point Favorites Over the Dallas Cowboys

The 49ers have been favored in every game this season, and yet their record is 3-4.

Grant Cohn

October 8, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Jordan Mason (24) scores a touchdown against Dallas Cowboys linebacker Damone Clark (33) during the fourth quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
October 8, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Jordan Mason (24) scores a touchdown against Dallas Cowboys linebacker Damone Clark (33) during the fourth quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images / Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
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The 49ers have been favored in every game this season, and yet their record is 3-4.

This week, they're favored to beat the Dallas Cowboys by 4.5 points according to DraftKings. On the surface, this seems like a reasonable point spread considering the Cowboys are 3-3 and coming off a humiliating 47-9 loss to the Detroit Lions. The Cowboys are not a good team.

But neither are the 49ers. They haven't beaten anyone good this season and they're incredibly injured. Brandon Aiyuk is out for the season with a torn ACL and MCL, Deebo Samuel is out indefinitely with pneumonia, Jauan Jennings could miss the Cowboys game with a hip injury and Christian McCaffrey is still out with bilateral Achilles tendonitis. The 49ers hope he can return after their Week 9 bye.

Meanwhile, the Cowboys are coming off a bye, which means they're twice as rested as the 49ers. Plus the Cowboys somehow are undefeated on the road while they're winless at home. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has a home passer rating of 74.2 and a road passer rating of 99.1. It's almost as if he feels more pressure to perform in Dallas after signing a contract extension that makes him the highest-paid player in the league.

But Prescott is a good quarterback, and he has CeeDee Lamb who's a good wide receiver. Meanwhile, it's unclear whom Brock Purdy will throw to on Sunday night.

I'm not saying the 49ers will lose this game, but I wouldn't pick them to cover the spread.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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