The Dallas Cowboys will head to New Orleans to play the Saints on Thursday Night Football. Entering Week 13 with a 7-4 record, the Cowboys will look to bounce back from a Thanksgiving Day overtime loss to the Las Vegas Raiders. The Cowboys have lost three of their last four games to the AFC West, but will now face conference opponents for the remainder of the season. There were a lot of additions and losses this week that are worth noting: CeeDee Lamb, Amari Cooper and Demarcus Lawrence will return from injury while Terrance Steele, Mike McCarthy and five assistant coaches will miss the game due to COVID-19.
The New Orleans Saints currently have a 5-6 record and have lost four straight games. The Saints played on Thanksgiving as well, losing 31-6 to the Buffalo Bills. The big news for the Saints this week is that Taysom Hill has taken first team snaps at practice at quarterback and is expected to start this week. Head coach Sean Payton has not officially announced Hill as the starter over Trevor Siemian as they are monitoring Hill’s foot injury at practice. They are expecting Alvin Kamara to return for the Cowboys game as well.
Let’s open up the Advanced Stat Notebook to see how both teams have performed this season using advanced analytics. Here’s a review of four key metrics to see if DVOA, ANY/A, Toxicity and EPA give the Cowboys reasons to feel confident about picking up win No. 8 on the season.