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Advanced Stats capture NFC East Week 6 Struggles, Week 7 Hopes

A very bleh week for the division punctuated by Washington's first victory

Dan Morse

Advanced Stats capture NFC East Week 6 Struggles, Week 7 Hopes
Advanced Stats capture NFC East Week 6 Struggles, Week 7 Hopes /

No more winless teams in the NFC East after this week!  Washington's first victory wasn't pretty, or impressive, but a win is a win.  And it's more than any of the other teams in the East came away with this week.  Let's see what the damage looks like through the lens of expected points.

(Reminder: Expected Points uses data from previous NFL seasons to determine how many points a team is likely to come away with on a given play, based on down, distance, time remaining, and field position. The difference in expected points at the start of a play and expected points at the end is referred to as expected points added, or EPA.)

http://airyards.com/baldwin_boxscores.html

http://airyards.com/baldwin_boxscores.html

http://airyards.com/baldwin_boxscores.html

http://airyards.com/baldwin_boxscores.html

The Giants actually managed to keep this game within one score all the way into the fourth quarter before the Patriots pulled away with this one.  Their defense held New England to a pretty poor overall performance, but New England's defense was even better.  Daniel Jones had the NFL's worst passing performance of the week, and the Giants as a team had the eighth worst rushing performance.  It was a rough outing against the league's best defense.

Washington got an ugly win behind Case Keenum, who was actually very productive on early downs.  Miami nearly stole a win in this one with just seconds remaining, but Washington held strong on the two-point conversion attempt.

Philadelphia got lit up in Minnesota, but not in the same way you might've come to expect from this Vikings team.  The Eagles were cooked by Kirk Cousins on Sunday.  Cousins threw for 11.5 Y/A and 4 touchdowns.  Carson Wentz did not keep up, and he likely cannot wait for DeSean Jackson's return.

The Cowboys got beat up by the Jets in Sam Darnold's return to action.  The Jets had their best passing and overall offensive performance of the season, while the Cowboys continued to look like a far different team than they did in Weeks 1 & 2.  The loss of Amari Cooper after the first series seemed to be a huge factor in how well the passing attack performed.

Week 6 Top Players

week 6 passing adot

Despite losing to an 0-4 Jets team, Dak Prescott actually had the best day of any NFC East quarterback, even without finding the endzone.  (He did have one rushing touchdown, but that's not accounted for here).  It was still a troubling day for Prescott overall.  After the first two weeks, he had a 0.68 EPA/dropback.  Since Week 3, that's dropped to 0.12 EPA/dropback.

Keenum and Wentz had very similar and uninspiring days.  The fact that one got a win and the other a loss can probably be chalked up to the strength of each quarterback's opponent.  Jones had the toughest opponent of the week, and while he did complete the first touchdown pass that the Patriots defense has given up all season, he'll likely want to forget the rest of his 3-interception day.

week 6 receiving

Darius Slayton and Terry McLaurin continue to highlight the deep threats in this division, while Michael Gallup had to slow down a bit with the lack of Amari Cooper.  Tavon Austin was the most efficient Cowboy, collecting four first downs on his six targets.  Golden Tate's return was highlighted by his 64-yard touchdown catch in the first quarter, but wasn't very effective outside of that.  As for Philadelphia, nobody had an above average day as a receiver.

week 6 rushing

All the running backs in the division were about average this week, with Adrian Peterson looking the best on the ground.  The most effective back in the East was actually Miles Sanders, but he did all his damage through the air.  His three carries for six yards on the ground, on the other hand, was the worst rushing performance in the East.

xsacks vs sacks week 6

Brandon Graham is one of the top pass rushers in the league by expected sacks, and he added another actual sack to his total this week.  Expected sacks convert pressures to a scale akin to sacks by comparing it to each players' opposing QB sack rate.  From the chart above, we can see that the Eagles pass rushers are getting significantly more pressure on their opponents than their sack totals might indicate.  Conversely, the Giants' Markus Golden is outperforming his pressure rate, which means he could be in for some regression in the coming weeks.  Hats off to him this week though, as he came up with another sack and his first touchdown.

Top Offensive Play

The first touchdown pass given up by the Patriots was also the biggest EPA play of the week for the NFC East.  Welcome back Golden Tate. (5.3 EPA)

Top Defensive Play

Markus Golden's fumble recovery touchdown against Tom Brady was the biggest defensive play this week, and it was by no means an easy touchdown run either. (-9.0 EPA)

Looking Ahead

After what will probably be Washington's easiest opponent of the year in Miami, they will now have to face one of the last two remaining unbeaten teams in the league.  The 49ers have a decent pass attack and a top-10 run game in the league, but their most powerful advantage is their defense.  This isn't shaping up to be a fun game for any quarterback Washington throws out there.

The Giants get a much friendlier matchup in Week 7 when the Cardinals come to town.  Arizona may have found their groove now, coming off of two straight victories where the offense averaged 30 points per game.  Both offenses will have a chance to feast in this one.

There will be a big NFC East game on Sunday Night Football this week, where one of two under-performing teams will get back on track.  The Cowboys haven't been the same team they were in the first two weeks, and with Amari Cooper and their two starting tackles potentially still sidelined, they could be in for another long day.  The Eagles still might be without DeSean Jackson, which evens the playing field a bit for the passing offenses.  The performance of Ezekiel Elliott could be the difference in this one.

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Dan Morse
DAN MORSE

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