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Little confidence in Ezekiel Elliott, Cowboys WRs ahead of Ben DiNucci's first start

Liz Loza & Andy Behrens preview the Dallas Cowboys' Sunday night matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 8. With Andy Dalton out and rookie Ben DiNucci getting his first start, the fantasy outlook for the Dallas skill players is not great.

Hear the full conversation on the Yahoo Fantasy Football Forecast.

Video Transcript

LIZ LOZA: The Philadelphia Eagles are 9 and 1/2 favorites over the Dallas Cowboys. Ben DiNucci, that's-- I got-- that's all I got. That's-- Andy Dalton is not playing in this one. So we got Ben DiNucci.

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah.

LIZ LOZA: And, there you have it.

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah.

LIZ LOZA: I got a question today that said, "Am I crazy for wanting to start Justin Jefferson over is Ezekiel Elliott?" I mean, that's where we're at. Like this is, this is the level of alarm emoji that we're feeling.

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah. I think Zeke is great enough that he can survive. [INTERPOSING VOICES]

LIZ LOZA: Of course.

ANDY BEHRENS: And beat Dalton in a bad offensive line. I don't know that he's so great that he can survive Ben DiNucci and a bad offensive line. Like, yeah, Zeke has carried the ball only 12 times in each of the last two games.

Like, games are getting away from them very quickly. He has plenty of juice as a receiver, and they might very well throw it to him. You know, eight, nine, 10 times this week. They may have to.

DiNucci was not a particularly good college quarterback. Generally speaking, quarterbacks who aren't particularly good in college, don't translate very well to the NFL. There are some--

LIZ LOZA: They don't get better in the NFL.

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah. That doesn't happen a whole lot. I mean, like, Josh Allen might be an exception to that. But it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen very often.

And so, I don't have, you know, my outlook for Dallas this week is that nine points would be a lot. Like, I mean them scoring nine points. So I don't mean Philadelphia covering like a 9 and 1/2 point spread. I mean Dallas getting to nine or 10 points seems pretty ambitious to me. It kills the value for any of these receivers.

LIZ LOZA: Well then let's talk about Philadelphia. Because Sanders didn't practice on Wednesday. Keep an eye on the reports for him, but he may miss this week. In which case, fire up Austin Scott, because man, it feels like based on what Andy just said, he should be in an opportunity to rack up yardage.

Last week he was on the field without Sanders in the mix for about 70% of the team snaps, carried the ball 12 times. Interesting to note, three of those were red zone carries. Also Drew five targets, another two red zone looks for over 90 scrimmage yards and a score. He was the RB 13 on the week.

I have him ranked in that, same, similar to Gio Bernard. And like, RB 13, RB 14, RB 12 range this week. If Sanders doesn't play.

ANDY BEHRENS: Yes. I mean, Dallas is not only the worst run defense in the league. But they, you know, this is multiple weeks now where late in games, they've clearly just given up. Like the Kenyan Drake play.

They had just given up. You know? Like they're-- they get to the fourth quarter in a whole bunch of games and there's not even like, you don't even have to question the effort. The effort is obviously not there.

They're as bad a watch as any team in football. And they're giving up like, 5.2 yards per carry. I mean, It's a great spot for Scott, for sure.

LIZ LOZA: Also, Jalen Reagor, rookie activated from IR this week. He could see the field. You still got [INAUDIBLE] out there.