The NFC East was the only division without a 10-win team in 2019, and one of just two divisions (along with the AFC South) without a 12-win team. Two of the group picked in the top-4 in the 2020 NFL Draft. Overall, it was a year without any great teams, a year without any playoff success, and overall simply a year to forget.
What should be expected from the division in 2020?
Looking at the underlying numbers, one might find some very different interpretations of how these teams performed, despite their win-loss records. A peek at the 2019 numbers reveals some clues as to what is coming.
Quick note; we will be using a stat called Expected Points Added (EPA) fairly heavily from here on out. Expected Points, the foundation of many analytical arguments, uses data from previous NFL seasons to determine how many points a team is likely to come away with on a given play based on down, distance, time remaining, and field position. The difference in expected points at the start of a play and expected points at the end is referred to as expected points added, or EPA.
A play with a positive EPA means it put the offense in a better position to score, while negative EPA implies the offense is in a worse position.
The Washington Football Team and the New York Giants are down in the bottom left with the rest of the teams that picked in the top-10 in the draft. There’s the Eagles right in the middle, a somewhat average team by EPA on both offense and defense. And there’s the Cowboys over on the right, sitting beside the Super Bowl winning Kansas City Chiefs.
Wait, what? The 8-8 Cowboys that didn’t even win the division?
That’s right.
Over the course of the entire season, the Cowboys consistently were able move themselves into a better position to score. The knock you’ll often hear is they played really well when they either already had a big lead or when they were already losing big. And we can check that by filtering this same chart down to only plays where they had a win probability between 20% and 80%.
This does seem to check out, as the Cowboys are now hiding behind the Titans, Texans, and Seahawks, a few tiers below the top teams like the Chiefs. The Eagles also look worse under this constraint, particularly on defense. Meanwhile, Washington and New York are looking about the same.
We can also visualize this by looking at, say, Dak Prescott’s performance (as measured by EPA/play) at each given win probability. This really illustrates that the Cowboys were fantastic when games weren’t close, but below average when the score was tight.
But last season is past, and all four of these teams are looking to improve on their 2019 record in this upcoming season. Which teams made offseason moves that will pay off in 2020?
Washington Football Team
The most notable addition for Washington has to be Chase Young, the prospect often considered to be the most talented player in the 2020 draft class. The numbers crowd and the film crowd may butt heads plenty, but in this case everyone could agree: Chase Young is special.
Young finished with the best ever PFF overall grade for a college edge defender. His pass-rush win rate (how often he beats his blocker) was far and away the best among Power 5 edge rushers in 2019.
The real question going into next season is how much he can help a Washington defense that gave up the sixth-most points in the NFL last year. There’s been a, um, spirited debate among football fans and analysts regarding the relative importance of pass rush compared to pass coverage.
It is of course better to be good at both if at all possible, but there is compelling evidence that points to pass coverage being the primary driver behind a strong pass defense.
Will Chase Young wreck opposing quarterbacks? Probably. Will that turn Washington into an above-average defense? That’s debatable.
The other main question with Washington is whether Dwayne Haskins can make a jump in his sophomore season. He had a very forgettable start to his career but showed noticeable improvement with each successive start after Week 11.
Here we can see his EPA/play climb significantly, along with his Completion Percentage Over Expected (CPOE), which is here given in decimal form. Haskins will need to continue this improvement if Washington wants to have any hope of a winning season in 2020.
New York Giants
The other team in the East with a top-5 pick added a trench player on the offensive side of the ball in tackle Andrew Thomas. Thomas was the third-highest graded tackle in the FBS per Pro Football Focus, and had the highest overall grade for an SEC tackle of any player since La’el Collins in 2014. They’re hoping he’ll shore up the protection for Daniel Jones, another sophomore quarterback hoping to make a leap in 2020.
Jones had the second-lowest clean pocket percentage among the 30 quarterbacks with 300+ dropbacks in 2019, better than only Sam “I’m seeing ghosts” Darnold. His progression will be key to the Giants, thought it is not as clear as what we saw from Haskins above.
Jones had his good days and he had his bad days.
Where he really shone was in his ability to use his legs, something the Giants never really had with Eli at the helm. Jones gained 228 yards on 27 scrambles last year. His 19.1 EPA on scrambles was the sixth-highest mark in the NFL. A game plan that accentuates his mobility, a la the Bills with Josh Allen, could help propel them to a much-improved offense. They’ve also now got an offensive coordinator in Jason Garrett who is familiar with quarterbacks who can scramble.
On that same note, Garrett just made the move from a team that loved to #FeedZeke to a team with Saquon Barkley. It’s probably safe to assume we’ll see plenty of running being established in New York in 2020.
Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles drafted a quarterback in the second round of the NFL Draft less than a year after handing Carson Wentz a $128M extension. Jalen Hurts might not make an appearance in 2020, but that was the biggest splash of their offseason.
In terms of more immediate impact on the team, Philadelphia graciously drafted a wide receiver for Wentz to throw to this year. The three players with the most catches for the Eagles in 2019 were a tight end, a tight end, and a running back. Wentz finished 17th in EPA/play last year with a CPOE just below 0, but the context of losing DeSean Jackson, Alshon Jeffery, and Nelson Agholor all for significant periods of time makes it hard to be too rough on him. The Eagles are hoping the addition of Jalen Reagor will add some much-needed depth to their wide receiver room and give Wentz some more legitimate targets beyond Zach Ertz.
On the defensive side of the ball, the Eagles seemed to disagree with the idea that pass coverage is more important than pass rush. Perennial Expected Sack (xSack) leaders Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham showed up again in terms of their pressure rates, but neither was able to convert that to big sack numbers. As a whole, the Eagles were middle of the pack in terms of actual sacks, but that undersells their ability to pressure the quarterback.
Only seven teams were able to pressure the quarterback more than Philly. There was also a huge dropoff after the Eagles here, indicating that they were if not in the top tier of pass rushing teams, they were no worse than the second tier. As pressure rates are far more consistent than sack rates, expect an uptick in the number of sacks Philadelphia nets in 2020.
Dallas Cowboys
Finally we come to the Cowboys.
Dallas us coming into the season with the a new head coach for the first time in a decade. The big question now is what exactly Mike McCarthy’s first non-Aaron Rodgers offense will look like. There was plenty to be excited about last year with new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore. The offense opened up early in the season with an abundance of early-down passing and motion at the snap, but it tapered off pretty quickly to around league average.
Prescott started the season on fire. At the halfway point, he ranked third in both EPA/dropback and CPOE, the only QB to rank in the top-3 in both categories. He even sparked some MVP talk. However, much like the team as a whole, his play fell off a bit towards the end of the season. He didn’t finish among the league’s elite, but he was definitely above average by all accounts.
The big offseason addition for Dallas was the gift of CeeDee Lamb.
Lamb adds another weapon to this already dangerous passing attack, and might encourage the new coach and young offensive coordinator to sling it around even more this season. Yahoo Sports writer Matt Harmon went so far as to compare Lamb to superstar wideout DeAndre Hopkins.The prospect of Lamb and Amari Cooper lining up on either side of the field is a mouth-watering one for any Cowboys fan. The only wrinkle is the lack of a true slot receiver among Dallas’ top-3 wideouts. Cooper, Lamb, and Michael Gallup all profile as outside receivers, and their main slot man Randall Cobb left in free agency last year. Lamb has expressed interest in playing in the slot, and if that can work out, this offense gets even more intriguing.
There is reason to believe every team in the division got better in the offseason. Philadelphia and Dallas were both good teams with bad luck last year, and it’s likely we’ll see them battling for the NFC East crown once again this year, only this time with double-digit wins.
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