It has been tough sledding for the Dallas Cowboys as of late. On offense, they can’t find any consistency and are turning the ball over. From a defensive perspective they are getting beat all over the place and can’t stop the run.
There is an argument to be made that the most potent part of their game right now is Brandon Aubrey and the special teams operation, but obviously if that is what you are relying on the most for points then you are not going to win a ton of games.
At the moment, the Cowboys have lost more than they have won and are obviously hoping to change that with a Sunday afternoon trip to see the Atlanta Falcons. Dallas is coming off of a game where the offense came alive late in the game (whether you believe this was garbage time or not is up to you) against the San Francisco 49ers and NFL Pro projections expect that trend to continue this week.
Somewhat.
Projections for the San Francisco 49ers game were somewhat accurate
Before we get fully to the Falcons game it is important to re-examine the projections from last week so that we know how accurate they were or weren’t. How much value can we place in something that we don’t know the legitimacy of?
In case you were unaware this is an exercise that we have been performing every week of the season here on the blog; however, right now we are obviously talking about San Francisco specifically.
It turns out NFL Pro was close in a few areas within their projections.
- Projected Dak Prescott at San Francisco: 234.5 yards, 1.6 TDs, 0.8 INTs, 13 rush yards, 0.1 rush TDs
Actual: 243 yards, 2 TDs, 2 INTs, -1 rush yards - Projected Rico Dowdle at San Francisco: 46.5 yards, 0.3 TDs, 2.1 rec, 15.1 rec yards, 0.1 rec TDs
Actual: Did not play due to illness - Projected CeeDee Lamb at San Francisco: 6 rec, 76 yards, 0.4 TDs
Actual: 13 rec, 146 yards, 1 TDs - Projected Jalen Tolbert at San Francisco: 3.2 rec, 38.5 yards, 0.3 TDs
Actual: 3 rec, 44 yards - Projected Jake Ferguson at San Francisco: 4.2 rec, 44.1 yards, 0.3 TDs
Actual: 6 rec, 23 yards
The yardage for both Dak Prescott and Jalen Tolbert was in the proper vicinity, although the former’s did not exactly come the way many would have expected it all to.
Obviously Rico Dowdle’s reported illness impacted his ability to live up to or surpass his own projection, but it is worth noting that the Cowboys as a whole barely passed his individual projection as they finished with 56 rushing yards as a group.
The good news, if there is any, is that the projections have grown for this week.
Projections are calling for a bit more offense from the Cowboys in Atlanta
As noted, the Cowboys are expected to achieve a bit more offensive success on Sunday against the Falcons than they were against the 49ers. The NFL Pro model does not, this is an assumption but it feels like a safe one, factor in things like a team’s history against another and obviously last week we were all hesitant about Dallas going up against San Francisco specifically given their recent battles.
That is a long way of saying that the Falcons are not the 49ers which is why, seemingly, the Cowboys are projected to put up a bit more on offense.
Prescott is projected to hit 250 yards passing, which is an uptick and while that is nice, calling for any rushing production from him seems rather foolish, especially considering Jerry Jones all but said that the team doesn’t want him running with the ball.
Every pass catcher here has a larger projection than they did last week although Rico Dowdle’s is lower. Again, we are in a bit of a unique time there.
If you flip to the second photo you will see that Kirk Cousins is also projected to hit 250 yards passing and that Bijan Robinson is projected to reach 74 yards rushing. It is worth noting that NFL Pro also states regarding this game that Robinson has a 57.6% success rate on runs that come under center so far this season. That is the highest among all running backs who have logged at least 30 carries.
Unfortunately, the Cowboys defense has given up the most touchdowns (11) and has allowed the second-best success rate (49.3%) on these exact type of runs. This does steer us into the advantages portion of our discussion here and while the Cowboys have a chance when they have the ball, Cousins may not struggle to hit 250.
Dallas figures to be able to handle pressure and against the blitz, but we have known for a long time now that Dak Prescott excels there. The trouble is that defenses know this and therefore don’t fall into the same trap that they used to.
While the Cowboys can conceivably hold their own through the air that is certainly not the case on the ground. As far as advantages in the ground game go, there is basically nothing but red.
The Cowboys are underdogs in this game and will have to find a way to do a lot of things that they haven’t been able to do this season if they want to pick up a win and get back to .500 before hosting the Philadelphia Eagles and Houston Texans in back-to-back weeks. After that they travel to face the Washington Commanders who are quite hot these days.
This game sort of feels like must win. No pressure.