The “Battle of Texas” and the “Governor’s Cup” are two names for the Cowboys vs Texans state rivalry. While it’s true fans of each team share a level of indifference towards the other, the series itself has been fairly close with the Cowboys leading 3-2 since the Texans joined the NFL in 2002.
As well as things have gone recently for the Cowboys, things have went the polar opposite for the Texans this season. The Cowboys are 9-3 and riding a three-game winning streak with two of those coming against teams in playoff conversation. The Texans are 1-10-1 and on a seven-game losing streak. Records aside, the Cowboys have one of the most potent offenses in the league and an elite defense while the Texans have one of the worst offenses in the league with a struggling defense that has allowed over 2,000 rushing yards already.
While this may appear to be a lopsided matchup, head coach Mike McCarthy has cautioned his team to not “take the cheese”.
Each week we open up the Advanced Stat Notebook to analyze how each team ranks in EPA, DVOA, ANY/A and Toxic Differential. These four key metrics have a high correlation to win probability