Dave Caban shares his baseline 2024 projection for the Dallas Cowboys while also considering the impacts of increases/decreases to market shares and team play volume.
Every offseason, I undertake the process of creating projections for every team. In previous years, this involved developing a projection that I believed would represent the average performance of all relevant players if a given season were played out thousands of times. This year, I have added steps to better understand how a player’s fantasy scoring could increase or decrease if changes in his market shares or his team’s play volumes were considered. Although my projections will inevitably have some large variances from actuals, this process will allow us to better understand a player’s potential upside and downside. (Quarterbacks were not included in this process as more nuance would be required and this exercise felt like one more suitable for the other positions. If time allows, I will home in on something similar for passers.)
Team Level Considerations
My baseline projection positions the Cowboys as an above-average team in terms of overall play volume. Specifically, it places the team in the 70th percentile of passing and 48th percentile of rushing based on my 2024 projections set when this article was published.
Dallas has been one of the top teams in terms of offensive play volume during Mike McCarthy’s tenure with the team.
| Year | Team | Pass Att | Rush Att | Pass% | Rush% | Plays | +/- LgAvg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | DAL | 644 | 487 | 57% | 43% | 1131 | 71 |
| 2022 | DAL | 578 | 545 | 51% | 49% | 1123 | 64 |
| 2021 | DAL | 691 | 483 | 59% | 41% | 1174 | 99 |
| 2020 | DAL | 639 | 430 | 60% | 40% | 1069 | 51 |
