Jonathan Bales is a special contributor to SportsDayDFW.com. He’s the founder of The DC Times and writes for DallasCowboys.com and the New York Times. He’s also the author of Fantasy Football for Smart People. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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A reader (h/t John Nix) recently sent me some numbers on the Cowboys and Eagles versus common opponents this season. The ‘Boys and Eagles have actually played five common opponents through six games.
While I don’t think analyzing the final scores does much good because of the variance inherent to points scored and points allowed, there’s value in examining other stats since we know the quality of the opponents has been equal. So I took some of the data and did what I do best—turned it into some graphs.
Passing/Rushing Yards Against
Defensively, the Cowboys and Eagles have been quite similar in regards to total yards allowed. Below, I charted the rushing and passing yards allowed for both teams against all five common opponents.
You can see the results have been eerily similar against each opponent. As a unit, the Cowboys’ defense allowed 77 more combined yards than the Eagles against their common opponents.
Passing/Rushing Yards For
Offensively, though, the Eagles have outperformed the ‘Boys in their common games. Check it out.
The passing offenses have been similar. Even with Tony Romo’s huge day against Denver, Philly quarterbacks passed for just 35 fewer yards in the five games.
The Eagles’ rushing offense, though, has been overwhelmingly superior. You can see Philly has outrushed the Cowboys by a significant margin in every game.
When you look at the matchup from this perspective, you can see why the Eagles are three-point favorites. There are of course other factors to consider, but there’s little doubt that traveling into Philadelphia against a team as explosive as the Eagles, the Cowboys are indeed underdogs.
Prediction: Eagles 28, Cowboys 24