Being a Dallas Cowboys fan isn’t easy these days, particularly for those who are also season ticket holders.
On the road, the Cowboys haven’t necessarily demonstrated the qualities of an elite team, but they are still 3-0 in those games, with wins against the Cleveland Browns, New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers — three bad-to-average teams.
At home, however, things are looking downright catastrophic.
Sure, 0-3 stretches can happen, but the Cowboys have been absolutely dominated in their three home losses, falling 44-19 to the New Orleans Saints, 28-25 to the Baltimore Ravens and 47-9 against the Detroit Lions.
The score in the Ravens game suggests a much closer contest than it was, too, as Baltimore led 28-6 with nine minutes left in the fourth quarter, but the Cowboys managed to narrow it to a one-score game at the end, largely thanks to recovering an onside kick.
Their defense has been especially concerning, as the Saints, Ravens and Lions moved the chains on 89%, 83% and 84% of their series, respectively. For context, the best team in the NFL at moving the sticks this season — the Washington Commanders — moves the sticks on 80% of their series.
Derek Carr’s, Lamar Jackson’s and Jared Goff’s dropbacks generated 0.79, 0.43 and 0.34 EPA per play, respectively, all ranking at least in the 95th percentile among all games over the last 10 years.
That sounds bad, but at least their rushing defense has performed better, right?
Sadly, this isn’t the case, and one could argue that their inability to stop the run is their most pressing issue. They have allowed roughly 650 rushing yards in their three home games: 190 against the Saints, 274 against the Ravens and 190 against the Lions. For comparison, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers allowed 707 rushing yards in all their home games in 2021.
While the Cowboys faced easier competition on the road, all their opponents posted worse offensive outputs against them than their season-long averages, particularly when measured by their ability to move the chains.
| Opponent | Location | Moving the sticks allowed % | Opponent’s season-long moving the sticks % |
| Cleveland Browns | Road | 55.6% | 60.4% |
| New Orleans Saints | Home | 88.9% | 73.2% |
| Baltimore Ravens | Home | 82.8% | 79.0% |
| New York Giants | Road | 66.7% | 70.5% |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | Road | 65.2% | 68.6% |
| Detroit Lions | Home | 84.4% | 77.2% |
The following team tiers chart — based on expected points added per play with adjustments for predictive power — accounts for the general strengths of opposing teams. In addition to all 32 teams, we added two Cowboys logos to show where they would rank if the home and road results were split into two different teams.
Unsurprisingly, the Cowboys’ performance at home would position them as the worst team in the league — by far.
Have there been instances in the past where a team performed significantly better on the road than at home over an extended stretch of games?
The Cowboys’ point differential at home is -66, while their road point differential is +24, resulting in a remarkable 90-point difference in favor of their performance away from home. In fact, we saw similar stretches not too long ago.
In 2020, from Weeks 2 through 7, the San Francisco 49ers recorded a point differential of +72 during their three road games while posting a point differential of -23 during their three home games. This results in an even larger delta than 90 points.
That same year, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers experienced a six-game stretch with a point differential of +50 in road games and -41 in home games. And in 2019, the Atlanta Falcons had a six-game stretch during which they were 89 points better on the road.
In total, there have been 53 six-game stretches since 2010 during which a team has played three home and road games apiece, and its point differential in the three road games has been at least 60 points better than in the three home games.
It’s important to note that the location of the games is most likely not the causal factor. Analyzing these 53 six-game stretches, the involved teams averaged a cumulative point differential of +21.9 in their five (or six since the introduction of the 17th game) home games outside that stretch in the same season. In their road games outside that stretch in the same season, these teams averaged a cumulative point differential of -12.6.
In other words, teams reverted to the usual expectation of being better at home outside the six-game stretches during which they were good on the road and bad at home, with the per-game difference being pretty close to the general home-field advantage in the NFL.
This serves as a cautionary tale against reading too much into specific splits, especially when other confounding factors may be at play. If the Cowboys’ situation is more than just noise, it could indicate that their defense is constructed in a way that gets exposed by strong offenses but performs well against weaker ones. A similar case can be seen with the 2021 and 2022 Eagles under Jonathan Gannon, who effectively shut down nearly every below-average offense while above-average offenses efficiently exploited their weaknesses.
There are some similarities between the Cowboys’ defense and this past Eagles defense, such as a relatively low blitz rate and below-average use of man coverage. However, these similarities alone are not enough to draw any definitive conclusions.
It’s safe to say that the Cowboys will not always perform well on the road and catastrophically at home in coming games. However, it will be interesting to watch if the trend that good offenses overperform their high standards against them while bad offenses underperform their low standards against them continues.
After a bye week this Sunday, the Cowboys will face the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday Night Football in Week 8.
