| Rank | Team | nERD | Projected Record | Playoff Odds | Super Bowl Odds | Off. NEP Rank | Def. NEP Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | New York Jets | -1.89 | 7.7-8.3 | 33.7% | 1.7% | 27 | 15 |
| 21 | Chicago Bears | -0.74 | 7.6-8.4 | 25.0% | 1.3% | 26 | 8 |
| 20 | Arizona Cardinals | -0.49 | 7.4-8.6 | 24.2% | 1.1% | 29 | 6 |
| 19 | Washington Redskins | -0.24 | 7.7-8.3 | 27.6% | 1.7% | 20 | 14 |
| 18 | Detroit Lions | 0.06 | 7.7-8.3 | 26.0% | 1.7% | 17 | 18 |
| 17 | Dallas Cowboys | 0.09 | 7.7-8.3 | 29.8% | 1.6% | 12 | 24 |
| 16 | Kansas City Chiefs | 0.25 | 7.7-8.3 | 33.8% | 2.0% | 11 | 26 |
| 15 | San Francisco 49ers | 0.7 | 7.9-8.1 | 32.4% | 2.1% | 9 | 27 |
| 14 | Houston Texans | 1.19 | 8.5-7.5 | 48.3% | 3.4% | 16 | 16 |
| 13 | Baltimore Ravens | 1.65 | 8.4-7.6 | 46.9% | 3.5% | 25 | 4 |
Dallas finished last season ranked 17th, and that is precisely where the Cowboys will start 2018.
Their offense projects to be a pretty good unit, but “pretty good” will not be enough to compensate for a poor defense. At first glance, the Dallas defense looks to be a regression candidate: it ranked 25th in Defensive NEP last year but tied for 10th in yards allowed per play (5.1).
The Cowboys defense ranked 19th in turnovers per drive, 22nd in red zone scoring rate and 29th in third-down success rate. These all tend to be measures prone to random variation so we should indeed expect some regression here.
However, these inconsistent measures were not the only reason why the Cowboys defense ranked so poorly. The bigger culprit was the fact that opponents were able to move the ball efficiently against it, albeit in small chunks.
On first down, Dallas allowed the second fewest average yards per play (4.4), but its opponents still gained at least five yards on 39.6% of their plays (21st in the NFL).
The unit was even worse on second down. The Cowboys allowed opponents to gain at least 60% of the yardage they required on second down about 49% of the time, the worst mark in the league according to Sharp Football Stats.
These struggles on first and second down meant Dallas had to defend the fifth-shortest average distance on third down.
The Cowboys did not allow a large average gain largely because of its ability to clamp down on big passing plays, as they allowed the fewest yards per completion (10.1) in the league. As the results plainly indicate, this did not do them much good, as opponents were more than willing to move the ball methodically against them.