2023 Fantasy Football: Cowboys' Prescott, Lamb Are Undervalued
Fantasy 4/17/23
The Dallas Cowboys were a major disappointment in 2022.
Don't blame Dak Prescott.
Much of the offense’s downfall came from Prescott leading the NFL with 17 interceptions. He also missed five regular season games, leading the league in interceptions per game (.88). You may not believe it, but Prescott was still a top-10 quarterback by EPA.
Prescott’s interceptions were so costly he would have been a top-five quarterback when removing interceptions from the dataset.
The 33rd Team’s Mike Martz took notice of this. If you haven’t watched his video breaking down each of Prescott's interceptions, Martz details an underlying theme with Prescott’s turnovers: The majority aren’t the quarterback's fault; primarily, it’s his receivers.
Martz suggests moving on from offensive coordinator Kellen Moore in 2023 will be huge for Prescott and Dallas' offense. From a play-calling perspective alone, I agree.
Finding Prescott's Real Value
Numbers Left On the Table
EPA is a great metric, but I wanted to know how much Prescott's and CeeDee Lamb's numbers were impacted by it. I built a model to estimate how many yards a player can expect before his current drive ends. I call it “expected drive yards remaining,” or xDYR, and it modeled 2022 quarterback drive yardage well (for every quarterback not named Patrick Mahomes, at least).
The model accounts for down, distance and other game situation factors for each play before calculating the average number of yards a player can expect to accumulate before the end of a given drive.
Using this model, we can estimate how many yards Prescott and the Cowboy's offense missed out on due to interceptions.
Prescott lost 205 total yards (187 passing, 18 rushing) due to turnovers, the most of any NFL quarterback. That said, Josh Allen also threw 17 interceptions, and it’s expected he only lost 131 passing yards.
Martz’s video identifies which interceptions were and weren't Prescott’s fault. Martz unapologetically defends 14 of Prescott's 17 interceptions, saying things like, “This is either really poor play design or the tight end ran the wrong route. You can't blame [Prescott] for this" (on Prescott’s first INT against the Giants in Week 12) or “the ball bounces right off of the offensive player and into the defender's hands," (on Prescott’s second INT vs. Tennessee). My favorite is "My wife can cover that route, to be honest with you" (on Dak’s INT vs. Indianapolis).
If we identify the plays Martz claims Prescott’s interceptions weren’t his fault, we expect Prescott to have finished with an additional 147 yards, or 3,518 total on the season (11th most per game, just behind Geno Smith).
Meanwhile, Lamb’s production increases from 1,359 to 1,410 receiving yards this past season, just 19 fewer than Stefon Diggs.
Take Advantage of Current Pricing
In 2021, Prescott and the Cowboys led the NFL in total points scored. In 2022, the Cowboys scored .1 points fewer per game than the Kansas City Chiefs in weeks Prescott started.
The Cowboys' offense may be inept, but they’re high scoring. If Prescott and the Cowboys can cut down on his interceptions, this is likely the highest-scoring team in the NFL.
Prescott is the QB10 on Underdog Fantasy. Had he thrown just three fewer interceptions from Weeks 1-17, he’d have finished the 2022 season as the QB10 on a PPG basis, ahead of Trevor Lawrence, Kirk Cousins and Tua Tagovailoa. Currently, Lawrence is the QB8, and Prescott should still have a slight edge to outperform him this season.
Meanwhile, Lamb is being drafted as the WR8. The upside for Lamb this year is Brandin Cooks, who the Cowboys traded for this offseason, opening up the slot and Ezekiel Elliott's departure freeing up 12 touchdowns. WR8 is closer to Lamb’s floor than his ceiling, but it’s still right about where he should go off the board.
A favorite saying of mine is, “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas.” We can speculate on the 2022 season all we want, but there is one is for sure: If Dallas’ offense prioritizes Prescott’s health and the offense’s turnover issues in 2023, the offense will be among the best.