{"id":463439,"date":"2026-10-12T04:08:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T04:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/463439\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T04:08:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T04:08:24","slug":"dallas-cowboys-playoff-chances-what-the-stats-prediction-markets-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/463439\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Cowboys playoff chances: What the stats, prediction markets say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">We know that 26% of teams that started 2-3 from 2020 through 2025 eventually made the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">But does 2-3 accurately describe the 2026 Cowboys? As it currently stands, there is no chance this team makes the playoffs. Instead, the lowly Giants currently look to be the NFC East favorite right now &#8211; not because they have a better roster, far from it, but simply because they are better coached.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">But how bad are the 2-3 Cowboys really?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">In statistics, the relationship between two variables is called a correlation, and the strength of that correlation is measured by the \u201ccorrelation coefficient\u201d. This coefficient (r\u00b2) is expressed as a number between 0 and 1. The closer the r\u00b2 number is to 1, the stronger the relationship between the two variables. The closer it is to zero, the weaker the relationship. In 2025, the metrics most strongly correlated with wins in the NFL were<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Conveniently for us, all three can be used to calculate projected wins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Points differential: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloggingtheboys.com\/dallas-cowboys-nfl-playoffs\/221254\/cowboys-playoff-tracker-percentages-win-projection-chances\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Last week<\/a>, the Pythagorean win projection (essentially a souped up version of points differential), adjusted for the games already played, showed the Cowboys as a 9.2-wins team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Five games into the season, the Cowboys have now scored 138 points and allowed 136. The Pythagorean projected wins for that stat line: 8.6 wins, and adjusted for the games already played: 8.1 wins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">EPA\/Play differential: One of the interesting things about both EPA\/Play and Passer Rating Differential is that they can both be plugged into a very simple formula to predict win totals in the NFL.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The EPA\/Play formula (Projected Wins = EPA Differential * 25 + 8.5) based on a 0.158 offensive EPA\/Play and a .182 defensive EPA\/Play projects the Cowboys for 7.9 wins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Passer Rating Differential (PRD): The PRD formula (Projected Wins = PRD * 0.17 + 8.5) based on a 98.2 offensive passer rating and a 109.6 defensive passer rating projects the Cowboys for 6.6 wins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Prediction markets: A different sort of math, but similar results nonetheless.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The historical numbers give the Cowboys a 26% playoff rate from this position. That\u2019s a useful baseline, but it tells us nothing specific about this team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The three statistical models put Dallas somewhere between 6.6 and 8.1 wins. The prediction markets are in roughly the same neighborhood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">That\u2019s not a playoff profile. And if anything, those numbers may be flattering the Cowboys. Seven or eight wins looks like a reasonable statistical baseline. But depending on your eye test, even that might be optimistic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Let us know if you think there is any chance they can turn this around, or are they going to miss the playoffs again?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We know that 26% of teams that started 2-3 from 2020 through 2025 eventually made the playoffs. But&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,23679,35189,104,103],"class_list":["post-463439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys-analysis","tag-dallas-cowboys-playoffs","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}