Bye-bye Bye Week.

After a week of some much needed rest, the Dallas Cowboys are set to return to action this coming Sunday night as they attempt to complete a second consecutive season sweep of the division rival New York Giants. The teams sport opposite records; Dallas sitting at 7-3 with New York checking in at a disappointing 3-7. Are the teams really that far apart? We all know records are the bottom line in sports, but they can also be a bit misleading. A 3-7 team doesn’t always play like a 3-7 team and lead their local writers to pen articles that cause a jaw-dropping reaction amongst both fanbases.

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That ought to fire up one or two folks in the Giants corner.

We all know the infamous take originally attributed to Henry Du Pré Labouchère, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." In sports, though, statistics are how we measure performance beyond just the wins and losses. In football, where sample sizes are so small, and the mean so cluttered, it behooves us to try to analyze things that have a higher correlation to winning than previous wins.

Fortunately, over the past several years, many statisticians a million times smarter than the author of this piece have spent countless hours devising formulas that they use to judge the quality of teams beyond the normal statistical measures. These advanced metrics allow us a glimpse into which teams are winning based on quality play, which ones are winning because of inept opponents and which ones have a horseshoe crammed up their chimneys.

So, let’s take a look at some of the statistical explanations for what kinds of team the 2014 Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants have proven to be, and what might transpire Sunday night.

DVOA Playoff Odds

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Thanks to the drubbing that Philadelphia took at the hands of Aaron Rodgers, the two teams are now much closer in terms of their playoff projections. Dallas is still not favored to win the East, based on their Weighted DVOA, but they do strangely have the better odds of gaining the No. 1 overall seed.

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According to Weighted DVOA, Dallas is the 5th best team in the NFC. Prior to Jacksonville, they trailed both Seattle and New Orleans; two teams they have defeated.

Standard Statistics

Dallas Cowboys