I enjoy analyzing football games, really getting into the numbers of it. The Dallas Cowboys have long been my favorite team until the year TB12 and the New England Patriots beat the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl . Now they share that spot in my heart. So I really like looking into the Cowboys. But I will say, it has been a rough 20 plus years!
At first glance, the Monday Night Football game looks tremendously lopsided. At times, the Cowboys have looked like Super Bowl contenders while the Giants look more like candidates for the number one draft pick in April of 2020. But let's take a deeper look at what Monday Night Football holds.
When the Cowboys are on the field, they are facing the 25th ranked defense in DVOA. The Cowboys are ranked No. 1 right now on offense. Total mismatch, correct? Maybe, but maybe not depending on how the Cowboys decide to play this.
Dallas is third in passing efficiency and second in run efficiency. On the road, they tend to run the ball a lot more than at home. They really run it a lot on the road when you take into consideration they were behind against the Jets and Saints and they still ran a lot more than the situation usually dictates. Jason Garrett, who I have long believed is extremely risk-averse, just wants to start games on the road with the mindset of running the ball and playing defense.
If that is true, they are playing right into the strength of the Giants defense. Ezekiel Elliott will be running against the Giants defense that is 12th in run defense DVOA and they just added Leonard Williams, so look for a low scoring first half as the clock will be running and the punts plenty.
Look at a couple of these clips of the Giants run defense against the Detroit Lions. As you can see here, the Giants do a really nice job of fitting the run on first down.
Their linebackers do a great job of seeing the opening at the LOS as they come downhill on run action. A couple of plays later, you can see the same thing this time with safety Antoine Bethea coming down hard to help in the run game.
The very next play, Deone Buccanon comes on a blitz and does a great job of keeping the edge and forcing the RB inside while making the play. I think this shows the Giants' philosophy on defense. They really emphasize taking away the run game and it shows in their 12th ranked defense.
If it plays out like it usually does, that will allow the Giants to stay in the game early, get some confidence, and allow them to run the ball some to get a break for Daniel Jones and give him some time in between passes to help formulate his thoughts.
I did an article a couple of weeks ago on the progress of Jones and his graph from his first start to his one before last week went straight south. He literally got worse every week. Last week vs the Detroit Lions, he bounced. He did some really good things.
When the Giants are on offense, they are 22nd in total offensive efficiency while ranked 27th in passing offense but the run offense is 13th. The Cowboys trot out the 19th ranked defense, ranking 17th vs both the run and the pass.
Watching the Giants, what this means to me is that Jones will get to continue his trend up from last week against a below-average pass defense. His mobility helps them against what they are good at, the pass rush. Jones is doing a much better job keeping his eyes downfield and throwing more accurately when pushed out of the pocket, as shown here.
And with the Cowboys probably missing LB Leighton Vander Esch, it hurts them quite a bit against the Giants in the pass and run game. I think it will allow them to also use their strength, the run game, against sub-linebackers Joe Thomas. It also wouldn't hurt the Giants to run a little zone-read as they did against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which they haven't gone to much since. And if Jones scrambles only when he needs to like he when the game was on the line against Tampa Bay. With Saquon Barkley being one of the best talents in the NFL, that bodes well for them at home.
Let's look at the last 13 games for the two teams. Throw out the highest and lowest difference, and they are averaging just above a 7-point differential per contest. (They are averaging a little less than 8 even with those in there.) Interestingly enough, Las Vegas has set the line at 7 on the game.
The Giants need to start early. In the last two games, they got down 17-0 vs the Cardinals and 14-0 vs the Giants before they outscored both of them collectively 47-30 from the second quarter onward. As a matter of fact, the Giants have not started a game where they did not end up at least two scores in the first quarter since September.
The Cowboys need to start early also. Before last week vs the Philadelphia Eagles, the Cowboys were averaging five points in the first half. 5! That included a slow first half against the Miami Dolphins and a loss to the New York Jets. Everyone has been jumping on the Giants and holding them off. I am afraid the Cowboys will not be able to do that with Garrett's mentality and will allow the Giants to get off to a decent start and make this a coin flip game towards the end of the contest.
