The Dallas Cowboys visit the Las Vegas Raiders tonight as the NFL completes the Week 11 schedule which included the last International Game of the year. The contest is set to kickoff at 5:15 p.m. from Allegiant Stadium in Sin City.
The Cowboys come into this contest with the better won/loss record, three wins to two. They also come into the game with a much more dynamic offense featuring three potential pro bowl participants in quarterback Dak Prescott and wide receivers George Pickens and Ceedee Lamb.
What the Cowboys first-year head coach Brian Schottenheimer doesn't come to Las Vegas with is a defense. The Cowboys started this season trading their best defensive player, Micah Parsons, to the Green Bay Packers. They have not only not replaced him, they have more problems stopping opposing offenses than nearly every team in the NFC. Only the Washington Commanders came into this week allowing more conference points than the Cowboys with 280. Dallas has given up only a field goal less entering Week 11 action, 277.
The Raiders problems are on the offensive side of the ball. In the entire league only the Tennessee Titans came into the week with less points tallied, 130 to 139.
Now, sometimes stats can be deceptive. If a defensive back has a lot of interceptions, it is worth factoring into that stat that the opposition is more than likely throwing a lot of passes to the receivers he is covering. The best defensive backs don’t always have a lot of interceptions because their coverage prevents the men they are guarding from even having a pass thrown in their direction.
Points for and points allowed can have an asterisk too. When a team has a particularly high scoring offense, it is likely the defense will give up more points than if their team didn’t score so often. So, can we consider that perhaps the Cowboys defense is allowing so many points because their offense is high scoring?