Ray Hagan
The football gods were not kind this week, as I went 1-2 in my NFC East predictions and 1-2 against the spread. At 6-3 overall and 5-4 against the spread, the Washington Redskins and New York Giants did me in this past weekend. Even though I mentioned the Giants had a winnable game against the Ravens, I didn’t have the guts to go against my metrics. I’ll consider that a lesson learned moving forward.
REWIND
Let’s start with the crushing blow. The Redskins defeated our beloved Eagles in a game that wasn’t really as close as the 27-20 score would indicate. The new right tackle Halapoulivaati Vaitai, who looked really good in practice according to Doug Pederson, had a harder time blocking Ryan Kerrigan than most people would have spelling his first name. I’m pretty sure that Kerrigan is still sacking Wentz right now. The Birds have gone from looking like the class of the division to looking like the third place team that they currently are. Credit goes to the Redskins for having a solid gameplan and oft attacking the rookie tackle. They also ran for 230 yards against a team that had previously allowed 338 total over the prior four games. The Eagles’ offense couldn’t protect the quarterback from a fierce Redskins pass rush and could never get into a rhythm. Washington’s win moves them to 4-2 and keeps them in the hunt for the NFC East crown they’re trying to defend. The Birds have lost two straight and are reeling.
The Giants got a much needed win as Eli Manning had the type of game that they’ve been waiting for all season. For the first time this year, he went north of 300 yards while also having more touchdowns than interceptions. He’d done one of those things on multiple occasions, but never both together in 2016. Now if this is the Eli we can expect going forward, the Giants become much more dangerous. Even at 3-3 and currently last in the division, they can still make noise. The Ravens looked flat again and the change to Marty Mornhinweg didn’t make much difference in the first week under the new coordinator. This was a game the Giants had to have and they took it.
For me, this was the game of the week. I predicted a Cowboys outright victory despite being the 4.5 point underdog but I didn’t think that they’d dismantle the Packers in the fashion they did. A few things became abundantly clear in this game: the Cowboys are absolutely the best team in this division, the Green Bay Packers are no longer an elite team in the NFL, and what was supposed to be a litmus test for the Cowboys actually became a litmus test for the Packers.
It breaks my heart to say it, but the Cowboys are playing better football than anyone right now. The Packers are a good team – likely a playoff team – but that’s their ceiling. They are not a contender in the NFC right now. The running game is flawed, the defense wilted in the Cowboys game, and Aaron Rodgers looks like he’s taken a step back. Dallas might be the conference’s most scary team right now. Ezekiel Elliott is carrying the load for Dallas week after week after week and grinding out yards, making it all the easier for Dak Prescott. This was another week north of five yards per carry for Zeke, which is his third week in a row putting up those numbers. He did it against a team giving up less than two yards per carry prior to this game. He accounts for 43.3% of the yardage Green Bay has allowed on the ground this year. I can’t use enough superlatives for Elliott.
FAST FORWARD
The Cowboys now draw the bye week, which seemed to affect the Eagles when they came out of their bye two weeks ago. Hopefully it has the same effect on those loathsome creatures as it did on our Birds. The G-Men fly across the pond to London, taking on the Los Angeles Rams in the early Sunday game. The Rams are sitting at 3-3, like the Giants, but the Rams have allowed 28 or more points in a game four out of six times this year, something the Giants have yet to do. The Giants have been outscored by 15 points over six games; the Rams have been outscored by 27 in the same span. The Redskins get to face off with the 3-3 Lions, who have squeezed out two straight victories by a total of four points. Washington, on the other hand, has won their last four by a combined 26 points and look like a team on a mission.
LONG BOMB
The hot topic of discussion right now is whether Dak Prescott should start once Tony Romo returns. Dak is 5-1, has won five straight and has the Cowboys atop the NFC East by a game just ahead of the surging and 4-2 Redskins. Prescott’s numbers aren’t outrageous, but he’s doing more than enough to get the Cowboys over the hump. On the other hand is Tony Romo, a Pro Bowl quarterback who wins 60% of his games and has a career TD% of 5.7%, better than Brady, Brees, Roethlisberger, Manning, Rivers, Luck, Newton and many others. The Romo supporters give the excuse that anyone can do what Prescott is doing with the play-calling and running game he has. Dak’s supporters will tell you that he’s a special player, not a place-holder and is better option at quarterback for this young and improving team. So who’s right? That’s why I’m here, to find that out.
Let’s first see how Romo’s first six starts compare to those of Prescott.
| Att | Comp | TD | Int | Yds | Comp % | TD% | Int % | YPA | |
| Prescott | 182 | 125 | 7 | 1 | 1486 | 68.68% | 3.85% | 0.55% | 8.16 |
| Romo | 178 | 123 | 12 | 5 | 1621 | 69.10% | 6.74% | 2.81% | 9.11 |
This is an interesting look at the two passers. It doesn’t give us much more information about who’s better in the here and now, but it does put Prescott in perspective a bit. Romo was an unheralded prospect, like Prescott. He was thrust into the spotlight when the veteran in front of him was injured, like Prescott. Who had the better start to their career? I guess it really depends what you value most in your quarterback. Prescott is significantly better at protecting the ball than Romo was; with an interception percentage roughly 5 times lower. Romo was more of a playmaker than Prescott is; with a touchdown percentage nearly 3% higher. Completion percentages are near identical with a slight edge to Romo. Romo also has more yards and a higher yards-per-attempt figure. It’s pretty safe to say that the two are fairly similar with Romo having more of the risk-taking, gunslinger mentality, and Prescott playing within the confines of the system. I wanted to also see which quarterback is better when supported by a strong running game. So I took the first six games of DeMarco Murray’s 2014 season where he won the rushing title and looked at Romo’s numbers in those games.
| Att | Comp | TD | Int | Yds | Comp % | TD% | Int % | YPA | |
| Prescott | 182 | 125 | 7 | 1 | 1486 | 68.68% | 3.85% | 0.55% | 8.16 |
| Romo | 191 | 131 | 11 | 5 | 1510 | 68.59% | 5.76% | 2.62% | 7.91 |
Romo had a very strong start to the campaign, but it looks like he and Prescott shared pretty similar stats. Romo threw it a few more times, and completed a few more, but had a completion percentage just a few ticks under Prescott’s with a slightly lower yards-per-attempt figure. His TD% remains better, and is right in line with his career number. While his interception percentage is still significantly higher than that of Prescott it’s also right in line with his career numbers. You’d be pretty happy likely to start either one of this quarterbacks, but in this particular comparison when you’re looking at a ball-control team with a strong ground game it looks like Prescott likely fits the bill better. But that doesn’t solve who’s better now…to do that we have to take a look at Romo’s last six healthy starts for comparison.
| Att | Comp | TD | Int | Yds | Comp % | TD% | Int % | YPA | |
| Prescott | 182 | 125 | 7 | 1 | 1486 | 68.68% | 3.85% | 0.55% | 8.16 |
| Romo | 183 | 137 | 15 | 3 | 1675 | 74.86% | 8.20% | 1.64% | 9.15 |
Here is where Romo shines. In just one attempt more Romo has 12 more completions, and over twice as many touchdowns. He’s got three times as many interceptions, but given the fact that he’s still at a very impressive 1.64% interception percentage (below his career mark of roughly 2.7%) the care of the football aspect doesn’t quite look as good for Prescott. Romo is completing 6% more of his passes, for an ungodly 8.2% touchdown percentage. For the sake of comparison in Peyton Manning’s record 55-touchdown campaign in 2013, Romo’s touchdown percentage was 8.35%. So while Prescott is playing the position really, really well; Romo was playing it historically well – albeit in a small sample – over the last two seasons he was healthy. That’s where the narrative gets so complicated here. We’re not talking about a quarterback who is “finished” and doesn’t know it in Romo; we’re talking about someone who has played extremely sound football. I don’t think the Cowboys can go wrong either way, and maybe I’m in the minority, but I’d play Romo.
By playing Romo the Cowboys can potentially showcase him for an offseason trade and move on with Prescott in 2017. Beyond that, as good as Prescott has been, he’s nowhere near the level Romo has been playing at when healthy over the same number of starts. Prescott can keep steering the ship the right way, but at this point, Romo might be enough to make the Cowboys something special. While many say that starting Prescott is the right decision, I think it’s the easy decision. Giving the job back to Romo and striving to be something special is the tough one, and the right one.
BEAST OF THE BEAT
Odell Beckham Jr. made sure this award wouldn’t be going to Ezekiel Elliott for the fourth straight week. Beckham had an insane eight catches for 222 yards and a pair of touchdowns on Sunday against the Ravens. Moreover, he got engaged to a kicking net. It was a really good week for the oft-maligned OBJ. When I looked into him a couple of weeks ago, I was fairly sure that we were seeing the calm before the storm rather than the aftereffects of Josh Norman. This week solidified that. Congrats Odell on the engagement and the Beast of the Beat Award!
We’ll be back later in the week with a preview of this week’s NFC East matchups.