As the Cowboys embark on their final preparations for the visiting Jacksonville Jaguars, there doesn’t seem to be much hope among the Dallas fanbase the club will be able to defeat a team that was in a conference championship a year ago. While Dallas’ defense has performed at relatively the same levels whether home or away, the offense has certainly functioned much better at the almost-friendly confines of AT&T Stadium. It’s well known Jerry’s World has never really afforded the Cowboys a home-field advantage, but they’ll need to improve to 3-0 there in order to save their season.

What do the advanced statistics tell us about the matchup?

DVOA – Football Outsiders

DVOA is a metric devised by Football Outsiders which measures success on each play as compared to league average based on “a number of variables including down, distance, location on field, current score gap, quarter, and opponent quality.” The metric is outputted in “percentage points better than average”.

The higher a percentage the better on offense and special teams, the lower the better on defense.

Week 6 Matchup

TEAM Offensive DVOA Defensive DVOA Special Teams DVOA Overall Rank DALLAS -13.1% (26) 0.0 (15) 0.2% (12) -12.9% (23) JAGUARS -5.5% (22) -16.9% (3) 2.8% (9) 14.3% (8)

This is easily the most dominated the Cowboys have been in any DVOA matchup thus far in 2018. Jacksonville is better by a small margin in offense and special teams, and by a huge gamut defensively.

Advantage: Jaguars

Toxic Differential

Our favorite advanced metric of them all. First noted by Super Bowl winning head coach Brian Billick, Toxic differential initially included pass plays longer than 20 yards, run plays longer than 10 yards and turnovers. Data gathered by Sharp Football Stats.

Week 6 Matchup

OFFENSE Pass Play

> 20 yds Run Play > 10 Yds Turnover Total DALLAS 10 20 -6 +24 JAGUARS 21 15 -12 +24

DEFENSE Pass Play

> 20 yds Run Play > 10 Yds Opp Turnover Total DALLAS 12 12 -4 -20 JAGUARS 11 13 -4 -20

An incredibly rare occurance, Dallas and Jacksonville end up even in toxic plays on both sides of the ball. Despite the Jaguars suffocating defense, they have not forced many turnovers on the season, sitting at the bottom of the league along with the Cowboy. On offense, the big plays of the Jags’ passing game are nullified by their proclivity to turn the ball over. Will Dallas be able to capitalize?

Dallas, despite their struggles and maybe as part of the reason for a lack of explosion in the passing game are generally pretty careful with the ball. In this ledger the tradeoff is even, but in reality it’s hit or miss.

The Cowboys have given up 9 passing plays over 20 yards in the last two weeks, not a good sign.

Advantage: Push

Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt

Adjusted Net Yards Per Pass Attempt, or ANY/A, is a formula which takes sacks and interceptions into account in measuring how efficient a team is in the passing game.

ANY/A: Adjusted net passing yards per attempt = (Passing Yards + (Passing TDs)*20 – (INTs thrown)*45 – Sack Yards) / (Passing Attempts + Sacks)

ANY/A comes in third when it comes to correlation to victory with an R² coefficient of 0.69. That’s only behind scoring differential and passer rating differential.

TEAM ANY/A For ANY/A Against Differential DALLAS 4.9 (30) 6.9 (23) -2.0 JAGUARS 5.9 (23) 5.0 (5) +0.9

The Jaguars are a much better team on both sides of the ball when it comes to the passing game. On a per-throw basis, they clear Dallas’ production by a full yard when each side has the ball. In fact, the only offenses that are in Dallas’ range of ineptitude passing the rock are Cleveland (4.9), Arizona (4.0) and Buffalo (2.0).

All three of those teams are starting quarterbacks who are rookies. It’s that bad.

On defense, Jacksonville clears Dallas by almost a full two-yards per pass.

The Cowboys will clearly need to rely on Ezekiel Elliott getting the ball on handoffs, or just an off day by Jacksonville, in order to make up the difference.

Advantage: Jaguars

Expected Points

EPA measures how much impact a play has on the expectations of scoring. a 10-yard pass on 1st-and-20 from your own 11-yard line doesn’t have the same impact on a score as a 10-yard pass 3rd-and-3 from from opponent’s 35.

Expected Points Added

Team Offense Defense Special Teams Total DALLAS -2.25 -18.53 4.77 -16.01 JAGUARS 0.98 25.01 -7.21 18.78

Yikes.

Here’s a look at who is the best producer on offense for the Cowboys. The mistake of not featuring Cole Beasley more is troubling.

Visualizing the Cowboys offense: Weeks 1-5, post-Houston loss ↗️ Tight-end usage in the passing game, Dak's legs

↘️ RB rushing effectiveness, throws to wide receivers

❓Bease with one catch on only three targets pic.twitter.com/J3U9HAlXxs — Cowboys Stats & Graphics (@CowboysStats) October 8, 2018

Advantage: Jaguars

One reason we love Troy Aikman’s efficiency ratings is because we know it’s something the Cowboys’ organization uses in helping them evaluate their teams.

From the Dallas Morning News in 2014:

“When I talked to Rod Marinelli in training camp, he said there were only two sets of numbers he cared about for his defense: the Aikman ratings and turnovers.”

What does it measure? It’s a proprietary formula devised by Aikman and STATS, Inc that weighs adjusted points, red zone efficiency, turnovers, yards per play and first downs.

Aikman Efficiency Ratings

Advantage: You guessed it, Jaguars

ALEX Yards

Air Less EXpected Yards, a Football Outsiders metric, represents a key part of third-down conversions. When a team is in third-and-medium or third-and-long, it is imperative for the quarterback to get the ball beyond the yard marker. In other words, don’t put the onus on the receiver who catches the target to then also need to use yards-after-the-catch in order to get the first down.

Let the air yards, the actual distance the ball travels via the pass, gain the necessary yardage as long as the pass is completed.

Dak Prescott: -2.4

Blake Bortles: -0.7

Prescott is among the league worst at that in 2018, almost always leaving his receivers to have to make the play against the defense. Is this a function of the quarterback or the passing offense? Whatever it is, Dallas is bad at it.

Advantage: Jaguars

Conclusion

Nope, Dallas isn’t better at anything important than Jacksonville is. But that’s why they play the game, right? Right??