The Cowboys are not expected to field much of an offense on Sunday against Philadelphia.
The Dallas Cowboys are set to host the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday afternoon, their first game of this season with Tony Romo on the call. Ol’ number nine may have horrible flashbacks to some of his darker days playing for the team, or rather watching from the sidelines during the 2010 and 2015 seasons, as the Cowboys are going to operating without quarterback Dak Prescott for the foreseeable future. It seems inevitable that Prescott will wind up on injured reserve and according to reports from Wednesday evening, season-ending surgery for his hamstring injury is a possibility.
However long Prescott does wind up missing, veteran backup Cooper Rush figures to be the quarterback who Dallas will call upon. We recently made the argument for the team playing Trey Lance, but they appear set to go in the Rush direction.
It surely will not shock you to learn that projections for the Rush-led offense are quite low.
Projections for the Atlanta Falcons game were kind to skill position players
Every week here on the site we take a look at what the folks over at NFL Pro have projected for the Dallas Cowboys, from a statistical standpoint, in their upcoming game. Obviously how accurate those projections are matters.
It is difficult to be completely precise in player projections, but on average they tend to be pretty accurate for at least one member of the Cowboys. If you are into player props, over/unders, higher/lower games or things of that nature then this may be interesting.
Here are how the projections for the Atlanta loss shook out.
- Projected Dak Prescott at Atlanta: 250.5 yards, 1.9 TDs, 0.8 INTs, 13.9 rush yards, 0.1 rush TDs
Actual: 133 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs, 30 rush yards, 0 rush TDs - Projected Rico Dowdle at Atlanta: 43.1 yards, 0.3 TDs, 2 rec, 14.5 rec yards, 0.1 rec TDs
Actual: 75 yards, 0 rush TDs, 5 rec, 32 rec yards, 1 rec TDs - Projected CeeDee Lamb at Atlanta: 6.7 rec, 85.1 yards, 0.5 TDs
Actual: 8 rec, 47 yards, 0 TDs - Projected Jalen Tolbert at Atlanta: 3.4 rec, 40.9 yards, 0.3 TDs
Actual: 3 rec, 19 yards, 1 TD - Projected Jake Ferguson at Atlanta: 4.5 rec, 46.8 yards, 0.3 TDs
Actual: 7 rec, 71 yards, 0 TDs
Obviously Dak Prescott did not play the fourth quarter which impacted his own statistical line as well as the potential ones of those around him. That is worth mentioning.
Still, though, Rico Dowdle crushed his projection in every sense except for not having a rushing touchdown. CeeDee Lamb fell short, but Jalen Tolbert was close to his and Jake Ferguson came in on top as well.
How do these projections look for Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles, though?
You will note that the Eagles themselves have some lower offensive projections than you may have initially thought or assumed. Given that Philadelphia is such a favorite in this game it is fair to wonder whether or not the belief here is that the Eagles will get out to a big-time lead and then relax on things a bit. Kellen Moore may want revenge, though.
Where things will also surely shock you are in the projected advantages department. There is a whole lot of green.
All told there are 44 different things assessed and analyzed here with an advantage listed for one team over the other. If it is not obvious, the more stars that one team has is representative of it being a larger advantage in their favor.
Of the 44 things a total of 42 are in favor of Philadelphia. One of the two favoring the Cowboys has only a single star.
This game looks to be a bad one for the Cowboys in a number of ways. Whether or not they can change that feels unlikely, but remains to be seen.
