The Cowboys are favored by a touchdown over the 8-3 Bills, and the advanced stats say that may not even be enough
The bye weeks are over and half of the league’s divisional races are all but decided. One such race that is far from over, however, is the NFC East.
The Dallas Cowboys currently sit as the favorites, with a 64% chance to win their second consecutive division title, per FiveThirtyEight. The Philadelphia Eagles are just a game behind, and could match the Cowboys win total with a victory over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. That is, unless the Cowboys take down the 8-3 Buffalo Bills.
Dallas comes in to Thursday afternoon as 6.5 point favorites despite two fewer wins than Buffalo has on the year. On the surface that may seem strange, but the underlying numbers all heavily favor the Cowboys, especially statistics rooted in Expected Points.
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.
Earlier this week, we released an opponent adjusted version of our EPA power ranks. And nobody was hit harder by the opponent adjustment than the Buffalo Bills.
Buffalo goes from a top-10 team to a bottom-10 team after adjusting for strength of schedule. No other team comes close to that kind of a change. So when you see the 6-5 Cowboys favored by a touchdown against an 8-3 team, there’s your reason.
We can take these adjustments one step further and apply them to upcoming games to see how Dallas’ offense matches up against Buffalo’s defense, and vice versa. This, along with a variable added to account for home field advantage, gives Dallas an even greater advantage by my model. Here’s how the model sees each NFC East game shaking out this week:
My model sees Dallas as double-digit favorites this week at home. I’m not suggesting you go put all your money on the Cowboys to cover, but you should feel confident that they won’t ruin your Thanksgiving dinner this year. The Bills’ strength on defense is in the passing game, while their run defense is the second worst in the NFL by my measure.
The Cowboys’ passing offense has torn apart every opponent this season, save for the monsoon game in New England, so while this game is ripe for a big Ezekiel Elliott outing, I wouldn’t fear this Bills secondary enough to take passes away from Dak Prescott.
These predictions also account for quarterback play, which is the main reason Carolina is favored by so much. Dwayne Haskins did get his first career win last week, but his numbers are still in the basement of the NFL.
Of the 41 quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks in 2019, Haskins ranks 40th in average EPA. Only recently benched Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Ryan Finley has been worse on a per-play basis. This prediction is less a praising of the Panthers and more an indictment of Washington’s play this season.
Philadelphia is coming off of a stinker of a game against Seattle, where they turned the ball over four times and didn’t get into the endzone until the final seconds of the game. They’ve had a tough schedule so far, having played five teams in the top 10 in adjusted EPA differential, which is why they still sit at 11th in our ranks. The fact that this one is in Miami is really the only reason this isn’t the largest spread of the week.
Last but not least is the New York Giants.
Green Bay is coming off of an absolute beating at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers, but that doesn’t mean they’re a bad team. It more solidified the fact that San Francisco, New England, and Baltimore are in a class of their own this year. On the other side, Daniel Jones is sitting at 37th in EPA/dropback, largely due to some costly sacks. No team has lost more EPA on sacks this year than the Giants. On plays where the quarterback is sacked, the Giants offense leads the league in fumbles, lost fumbles, and touchdowns given up to the defense.
The Cowboys are the only NFC East team to play on Thursday, and if it follows along with what the advanced stats are telling us, this should be a somewhat stress-free Thanksgiving for Cowboys fans.
They’ll need it too, if they want to keep up their advantage in the playoff race in these final weeks of the season.
