The 2019 Dallas Cowboys season was just plain weird.
They finished 8-8 and missed the playoffs despite having the league’s sixth best point differential (+113) and a pythagorean win expectation of 10.7 wins. They should’ve been competing with the New Orleans Saints for a bye week in the playoffs, not sitting on their couches in January.
What went wrong?
There has been plenty of focus on the Cowboys’ offense, which was dominant at times but struggled against playoff teams. The continued rise of Dak Prescott plus the addition of CeeDee Lamb and the possibility of Kellen Moore letting loose a bit more with new head coach Mike McCarthy is enough to make most fairly confident that the offense is set to thrive.
But what of the defense?
Here’s how the Cowboys defense performed overall relative to the rest of the league in 2019 in terms of EPA/play allowed.
(EPA is short for Expected Points Added. Expected Points are derived from a formula based on past seasons of NFL data and take into account down, yards to go, yards gained, and other factors to produce the likely amount of points scored on any given play.)
In this piece, we’ll break down the three levels of the Cowboys defense heading into 2020 and try to predict if they’ll help push Dallas over the hump this season.
Defensive Line
The defensive line got a big overhaul this offseason. Of the five Cowboys with the most pass rush snaps in 2019 (per Pro Football Focus), only Demarcus Lawrence is returning in 2020. Dallas is looking to replace the production of Robert Quinn and Maliek Collins with newcomers Everson Griffen and Dontari Poe.
The plot above compares each player’s sacks (as measured by PFF, which does not award half sacks and may differ from the official NFL total) with their expected sacks. Expected sacks (xSacks) depict how many sacks a player would be expected to get based on their pressure rate. Sacks are far less stable than pressures, so in predicting future success you’re generally much better off using expected sacks over sacks.
Lawrence’s first season into his five-year, $105 million contract extension was a disappointment in most regards, but his pressure rate of 13.6% was right in line with his career rate of 13.5%. He actually led the Cowboys in expected sacks in 2019, slightly edging out Robert Quinn, though Quinn played 37 fewer snaps.
Everson Griffen is the biggest addition to the line. He has been remarkably consistent over his career and there is evidence that his sack totals don’t do him justice.
He has consistently played at an 11-12 sack level over the last six years with no real sign of slowing down, though at 32 years old there’s always a chance the age catches up quickly.
Rookie edge rusher Bradlee Anae has also already shown promise in training camp, adding to the already exciting look of his 11.3 xSacks in the NCAA last year. Obviously one can’t expect a fifth-round pick to grab 13 sacks in his rookie year, but adding even half of that production would be huge for the Cowboys.
This doesn’t take into account the addition of Aldon Smith, who after being off the field since 2015 has emerged as a major force during Dallas’ training camp practices. Smith played nine games in 2015 and his performance mirrored Michael Bennett’s nine game stint with the Cowboys last year quite well. The 31-year old should add great rotational depth to this line.
Linebackers
The big question at the second level is which Leighton Vander Esch the Cowboys will be getting in 2020. His 2018 rookie campaign saw him receive the fif-highest PFF grade among linebackers in the NFL, leading to a Pro Bowl and a second-team All-Pro nod. Last year was the definition of what you might call a sophomore slump. Vander Esch fell to the 60th ranked linebacker per PFF and battled a neck injury that forced him to miss seven entire games and parts of several others.
The area of his game that dropped off the most was his run defense. Vander Esch went from arguably a top-10 run defender among linebackers in 2018 to PFF’s 89th-ranked run-stuffing linebacker in 2019.
Vander Esch missed 15 tackles all year in 2018. In 2019 he almost matched that with 12, but in about half as many snaps played.
He has said he feels his health is in a much better place heading into 2020, which leaves hope that he will return to the top tier linebacker we saw in his rookie year.
Fellow linebacker Jaylon Smith also dipped a bit from his 2018 season, though not to the same degree as Vander Esch. One of the more intriguing parts of what he brings to the team in 2020 revolves around his move to weak-side linebacker. There’s a strong chance he’ll be rushing the passer a bit more this year, especially with defensive coordinator Mike Nolan coining the phrase designated pass rusher as a linebacker responsibility.
Over the past three years (his tenure as a Cowboy), Smith actually has the highest pressure rate of anyone in Dallas. Rushing the passer is obviously a much different task as a linebacker versus as a defensive lineman, but the skills do appear to be there. Based on his pressure rate, he’s expected to get a sack about every 31 snaps. For reference, Demarcus Lawrence and Robert Quinn are next best on the team at 35 and 38 snaps, respectively.
If Nolan bumps up Smith’s pass rushing duties from the 60-70 he saw these last two years up to 100 or so, it could easily result in 3-4 more sacks for Smith.
Secondary
The Cowboys suffered a big loss in the secondary with the departure of cornerback Byron Jones over the offseason. Jones was a top-20 corner by overall PFF grade and one of the very best tackling corners in the NFL last season. With Jones in 2019, Dallas allowed completions at a lower rate than league average at nearly every target depth.
The Cowboys defense ranked 11th in EPA/pass and 8th in Y/A allowed last season. PFF gave the team the sixth-best overall coverage grade in the NFL.
While losing Jones hurts, there’s a chance the Cowboys already have his replacement on the roster. Second-round draft pick Trevon Diggs has been showing out in camp this summer. The secondary might not miss a beat heading into 2020.
Moving just a bit further back into the secondary and we run into some potential troubles. Xavier Woods has one of the safety positions locked down, but the other is not so clear. Ideally, free agent signing Ha Ha Clinton-Dix would take that spot, but reports from training camp have indicated that he might be getting beat out for the starting position by Darian Thompson. Whether that’s a positive signal of the progression of Thompson or an omen of the play of Clinton-Dix remains to be seen. Based on last season’s performance, there is plenty to worry about in regards to Ha Ha.
Per ESPN’s Seth Walder, Clinton-Dix gave up the highest completion percentage over expected (CPOE) of any safety in the NFL when he was targeted last year. That means that based on the target depth and area of the field, quarterbacks were completing passes at an above average rate when targeting Clinton-Dix. If the Cowboys are really concerned about that second safety spot, there’s always the option of looking at the big free agent name that appears at the complete opposite end of that y-axis in the above chart.
After looking at each position group, there seems to be good reason to get excited about this defense improving in 2020. The defensive line, while experiencing quite the turnover, appears to have added about as much as it lost. Leighton Vander Esch will likely experience some positive regression and, while not necessarily lighting the world on fire like he did in 2018, he should improve on his 2019 season. The secondary still has a few question marks, but if Trevon Diggs is the real deal, this defense has a shot to be great.
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