The NFC divisional playoffs tale of the tape

Note: aside from the overall DVOA and FPI ratings, the stats and rankings below come from the regular season only — not last week’s wildcard games.

In both of the AFC’s divisional games, it’s not too hard to talk yourself into each road team. On the NFC side, though, that requires a bit more of a leap of faith. And in this game, it might require a double leap. Including last week’s win over Seattle, the Cowboys are 8-1 at home this season, but they were just 3-5 on the road, 1-3 against playoff teams.

Dallas is far better at home, and Los Angeles is just ... far better. The Rams have been among the top two or three teams in the league all season, and while Dallas improved upon the midseason addition of receiver Amari Cooper, the offense is still only average at best. The Cowboys’ defense keeps them close, but let’s just say I’m surprised the spread is only seven points.

It’s pretty hard to make the case for Philadelphia, too, but let’s just say it was hard to make the case in last week’s trip to Chicago, too. That didn’t seem to matter. The defending Super Bowl champs seem to be peaking at the right time. We’ll see if that matters against the top seed.

The Saints’ 48-7 destruction of Philadelphia on November 18 seemed to be an inflection point for both teams. New Orleans took its foot off the gas a bit, leaving its offense at home in a loss to Dallas, eking by at Carolina, and barely beating Pittsburgh at home. (They also got smoked by Carolina in the season finale, but that was with quarterback Drew Brees resting on the bench.) Philly, meanwhile, won six of seven, with only an overtime loss at Dallas marring a perfect finish.

The Eagles have been an incredibly average team this year, but they’ve been far more than that of late.

Los Angeles has nearly as many names as any defense in the league: best-player-in-the-league Aaron Donald, Ndamukong Suh, Marcus Peters, Aqib Talib, etc. But the Rams are still only marginally efficient, and the big plays they allow are bigger than everyone else’s.

Statistically, the Cowboys’ offense is a mirror image. That creates some confusing matchups. Los Angeles gives up big plays, but Dallas doesn’t make many. Dallas struggles to score touchdowns in the red zone, but the Rams aren’t great at preventing them.

On the other side of the ball, it’s a different story. Dallas’ defense is underrated and solid, but, well, the Rams’ offense is very properly rated and well-rounded.

Dallas will give Ezekiel Elliott as big a load as he can handle, and that matches well with the Rams’ bigger weakness — Donald and Suh haven’t prevented their unit from being mediocre against the run.

If the Cowboys can work the run well, or at least sell it well, that could distract the safeties enough to open up downfield opportunities for Cooper (13.7 yards per catch with the Cowboys) and all-or-nothing rookie Michael Gallup (15.4 yards per catch, 49 percent catch rate). LA is vulnerable to big pass plays, and while Dak Prescott is a check-down machine (Elliott leads the team in catches despite averaging just six yards per target), he might not have to check down if he doesn’t want to.

Being a run-heavy team isn’t really the way to win tons of games in the 2018 NFL, but it could benefit the Cowboys in this one.

It better, at least. Because as excellent as Dallas’ defense has been, especially since inserting rookie linebacker Leighton Vander Esch into the starting lineup, the Rams’ offense is better in basically every category. And Dallas’ biggest strengths — run efficiency and big-play prevention both on passes and on standard downs — are basically negated by Los Angeles’ own strengths.

Dallas wants to turn this into a ball control battle, riding Elliott as much as possible and hitting the few deep shots it takes. But only one team has pulled that off successfully this year, and it took an even better defense: Chicago’s, in a 15-6 win over the Rams on December 9. Los Angeles has scored at least 23 points in every other game and at least 29 in 13. This is probably too much of a task for Dallas.

Everybody ends up with better stats in wins than losses. Obviously. But see if you can spot which is the more important unit for Philadelphia in 2018:

The Eagles’ offense is 6.2 points worse in losses than in wins ... and their defense is 12.5 points worse. They allow 444 yards per game in losses and 310 in wins. And they allowed 546 the first time they faced the Saints. And in the rankings above, New Orleans’ offense is at least 14 spots higher in three of four.

There is no preventing Drew Brees from completing passes. The Saints are first in passing marginal efficiency and second on standard downs, after all. But the first step to beating New Orleans is tackling and making the Saints run lots of plays. A few teams have pulled it off.

Not including the end-of-year Carolina game, four teams held New Orleans under 300 yards this year: Cleveland in Week 2, Minnesota in Week 8, Dallas in Week 13, and, somehow, Tampa Bay in Week 14. It’s pretty obvious how they did it.

Brees will take what you give him, and if you can cloud the more vertical routes, force him to throw short, and tackle really well, it opens the Saints up to more mistakes.

That sounds easy. But again, only four of 15 teams did it.

Until we see how Philly is defending the pass, nothing else matters in this game. With Playoff Nick Foles behind center, the Eagles should find some of their own pass efficiency advantages, too, but if you can’t disrupt Brees’ timing at least a bit, you’re going to have to score 40-plus points to win. Tampa Bay managed to do that in a 48-40 win in Week 1, but that’s it.

Thomas Morstead’s punting average has actually slipped a bit this year; blame rust. His 43 punts are the fewest he’s ever had in one year — he attempted 60 last year. Still, that “slippage” means he only averaged 46.4 yards per kick, and the Saints only rank ninth in Punt value, per DVOA. The horror.

A strong punting and field position game could help the Eagles tremendously if they are indeed able to tackle and prevent big pass plays. They could create very long fields for New Orleans and force methodical drives, even if they’re facing the same. That’s the kind of game you want, though if drives stall out and field goals become a factor, New Orleans’ Will Lutz (13-for-15 on FGs of 40 yards or longer) has been Jake Elliott (9-for-13) in that regard.

In the other game ... woof. Both the Cowboys and Rams are between average and far below in basically every special teams category. The main goal for both teams will be avoiding disaster.

Granted, New Orleans has established a wide range of outcomes between unexpectedly dominant and slightly disappointing, but both the Rams and Saints have overachieved against the spread this year. That makes the hill awfully steep for two touchdown-or-more underdogs.

Again, it takes a leap of faith. Dallas could control the ball, get a couple of favorable bounces, turn this into a 16-13 grind, and perhaps score an upset. Philly could keep riding the plot-reversing wave of the last few weeks, limit Brees to eight yards per completion, and prevail.

But we’ll say the odds of either are between about one-in-three and one-in-four. More likely is that the two teams that have been, on average, quite a bit better in the regular season remain so after a week of rest.