Cowboys @ Titans Expert Picks: Anybody Taking The Cowboys? Anybody?

The Cowboys travel to Tennessee on Sunday and go into the game as 3.5-point underdogs. The Vegas oddsmakers generally start with a base 3-point advantage for home teams in the NFL, so the current odds would suggest that on a neutral field, this game would be a pretty even match. But not according to the experts, most of whom like the Titans for the win on Sunday.

Whether or not those experts have any idea of what they are talking about remains to be seen, but here's what our panel of prominent pigskin pundits predicts for the game:

Name	Pick	Score	Comment
Michael Smith, Pro Football Talk		28-17	Week One made me re-evaluate my feelings about both of these teams. I figured the Titans’ offense was going to sputter with Jake Locker at the helm, while the Cowboys’ offense would be good enough to keep them in games despite a lousy defense. Instead, it was Tennessee’s offense that looked strong in Week One and Dallas’s offense that looked like a mess. We’ll see more of the same in Week Two.
Vinny Iyer, Sporting News		20-19	Are the Cowboys really that bad, and a 10-point follow up, are the Titans really that good? The answer lies somewhere in between after Dallas got ripped at home and Tennessee rolled on the road. The Titans have our attention as a team we can’t sleep on, especially if we see more of that Jake Locker. If we see more of that Tony Romo, the Cowboys will come up empty all season. Locker won’t be as good, Romo won’t be as bad, and we get this ugly result.
Sam Farmer, LA Times		27-24	The Cowboys laid an egg in their opener, but their defense wasn't an utter disaster. Still, the Titans have enough to hang on and win at home.
Mike Florio, Pro Football Talk		27-13	I underestimated the Titans.  I properly estimated the Cowboys.  For Dallas, an 8-6 finish will be needed to get the Cowboys back to 8-8 again.
Peter Schrager, Foxsports		34-30	After an offseason discussing with coaches on the pro and college level, Jason Garrett unveiled a different practice schedule for the Cowboys this week. Instead of the typical Tuesday off-day, something that's been an institution in the NFL for decades, Garrett's gone the Chip Kelly route, shifting Cowboys off-days to Monday, giving the coaching staff an uninterrupted day to prepare a game plan, and the team hitting the ground running in implementing it on Tuesday. The Cowboys needed some sort of shakeup to the routine after Sunday's embarrassing loss on national television. The final score was 28-17, but it may have just as well been 52-17. I'm taking the Cowboys, but have about a 1 out of 10 on the old "confidence" scale at this point.
Pete Prisco, CBS Sports		33-20	The Titans really impressed beating the Chiefs on the road last week, and Dallas really looked bad against the 49ers. The Cowboys will bounce back on offense in this one, but the defense is really bad. Jake Locker has another solid game as the Titans take it.
Greg Cote, Miami Herald		28-24	"AAAWWWK!" shouts the Upset Bird, emerging in a cloud of smoke from Jerry Jones’ party bus. "Pass me that Johnnie Walker Blue. Johnnie Waaawwwk!" So the Cowboys lost big last week, and Tony Romo looked bad and now the team owner Jones is being sued by a former exotic dancer. A typical week, in other words, for the defrocked America’s Team. Dallas’ D is a fright, yes, but it says here Romo will put up the points to outscore Tennessee, which isn’t as good as KC made it look. "Cowboys all the way," concurs a perhaps tipsy U-Bird. "Cowbaaawwwk!"
Elliot Harrison, NFL.com		26-23	Tony Romo will bounce back this week in Tennessee, although I wouldn't anticipate him posting a 350-yard passing game against this Titans defense. Hopefully, the Cowboys' plethora of offensive minds -- Jason Garrett, Bill Callahan and Scott Linehan -- forget for one afternoon that they are on the Cowboys coaching staff and run the football 30 times. One would hope that the Three Amigos caught on, after Romo took a sack on second-and-goal from the 1-yard line against San Francisco last week, to the notion that abandoning an effective running game will spell 0-2. As for the Titans, I suspect Jake Locker won't even sniff 40 pass attempts -- but running backs Shonn Greene and Bishop Sankey should find this Dallas defense to be easy pickings.
Randall the Handle, Toronto Sun		- -	Had this game been played last week, the Cowboys would have been chalk. But after watching another episode of the 22 Stooges and with the Titans serving up an impressive win, Tennessee has justifiably earned the favourite’s role. That suits us just fine as Dallas is at its best when not expected to win, covering seven of its past 11 when taking road points. Tennessee didn’t have to expose its suspect defence against Kansas City’s inept passing game. Tony Romo might be erratic, but he won’t be throwing into San Fran’s secondary this week. The Titans have covered just three of their past 13 as home faves.
Chris Schultz, TSN		- -	Almost a must-win for the Cowboys as they still have New 0rleans at home and Seattle on the road before mid-0ctober. Four turnovers against a good 49ers team was the main reason for the 28-17 loss; four turnovers in the first half. Tennessee did look good last week. Jake Locker played like a first round pick and Tennessee controlled the ball for 38 minutes. Dallas has to have this one. Dallas

What looks like a pretty even split in the comments above looks very different in the addtional summary of picks for the weekend, none of which provide a specific soundbite for their picks. The last column in the table shows how accurate these panels were in predicting the correct outcome of Cowboys opener this year.

13-51 feels like much longer odds than the 3.5 points Vegas is offering. Do you think the Cowboys can pull off the upset?