The Dallas Cowboys’ loss to the Chicago Bears on Thursday night dropped them out of the top five in our EPA power ranks for the first time since Week 10. But once again, aided by some inconsequential scores late as well as adjustments for facing a tough defense, they still look like a much better team by EPA than their record suggests.
What’s going on?
We’ll attempt to add more context to their 6-7 record later, but first let’s check out where every team ranks using 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.
The below rankings represent team EPA differential (offense EPA minus defense EPA) adjusted for opponent strength.
The top four stay put, though Kansas City did close the gap on New England with their win in Foxborough. The Patriots defense is still among the best in the league, but has shown some cracks in recent weeks. New England allowed 14 or fewer points in all of their first eight games. They have since given up 23 or more points in three of their last five games. These also happened to be the first games they played some above average offenses, giving more credence to the idea that defensive performance is largely a function of the offenses they face.
They’ve gone from historically good to just the ninth-best pass defense in the NFL in that span, even after adjusting for opponent. They’re mortal.
The Rams made the biggest leap forward with their dominant win over the Seahawks on Sunday Night Football. Los Angeles lit the world on fire with their offense last season, but that’s gone stale in 2019 and they’ve had to rely on their defense for much of this year. That defense showed up big time against a Seattle offense that came into the week ranking sixth in adjusted EPA. After allowing an opening drive field goal, the Rams defense went 46:31 without allowing another point. With an average Jared Goff, this team could be a sneaky contender come playoff time.
Houston’s throttling at the hands of Drew Lock and the Denver Broncos dropped them five spots into 11th place, just one ahead of…the Tennessee Titans. The AFC South race suddenly looks like it may come down to the Week 17 game between these two teams, and there’s even a chance that no matter the outcome, they meet again in the wild card round of the playoffs. To get a better picture of the Titans, we need to talk about Ryan Tannehill.
Since Tannehill took over starting duties in Week 7, the Titans rank third in adjusted pass EPA per play and fourth in adjusted offense EPA per play. That’s ahead of Houston, Kansas City, and Minnesota, and just a shade behind Green Bay. It’s been a truly remarkable renaissance for Tannehill, who apparently just needed to get out of Miami to really find himself.
There were some minor fluctuations in the rest of the ranks, but nothing really significant.
Let’s get back to Dallas, and the reasons they might look much better by their underlying numbers than they do in our eyes watching them every Sunday.
We can take an easy starting point straight from the Bears game last Thursday. The final score was 31-24 Chicago. Dallas was within one score as the final seconds ticked off, but anyone watching knew it wasn’t actually that close. The Bears took a 31-14 lead early in the fourth quarter, and Dallas wouldn’t even get to within two scores until there were less than five minutes left. The last 10 points on offense were nearly the definition of garbage time points. This has been a trend all season.
Using the win probability model in nflscrapR, we can take a look at how efficient the Dallas offense is on average during any game state.
When the game is all but decided, whether that means a Cowboys win or loss, the offense is among the best in the league. Dallas, when trailing, is incredible. And that’s good! The offense needs to be good when the score isn’t on your side.
The real issue is that deep valley in the middle.
When Dallas has between a 40% and 60% chance to win the game, Dallas is not only below league average on offense, they’re actually negative in EPA/play. The only teams with a worse offense in situations where the game is on the line are Washington and the New York Giants. That’s right, even Miami and Cincinnati are more efficient in these situations.
This team is likely better evaluated when we dice down their EPA to just neutral situations, as shown below. Neutral, in this case, is defined as having a win probability between 20% and 80%, and excluding the final two minutes of each half.
This paints a picture of a much more modest Cowboys offense, with their closest comparisons Cleveland and Buffalo.
It’s a remarkable split, and something Dallas needs to figure out if they want any hope of taking the division and winning in the playoffs. This next game against the Rams, who now sit higher in our EPA ranks, is not going to be an easy spot to start the turnaround, and all signs still point to a decisive Week 16 game in Philadelphia as the moment we find out if they really are a playoff team.