The Cowboys are in danger of making the playoffs. They came into Week 16 with 5% odds to earn a postseason berth, needing to win out and for Washington to lose each of its final two games.
In this chat, I’ll post the live playoff odds with updates throughout the afternoon. These odds will consider the status of both this week’s Washington and Dallas games via nflfastR’s win probability model, as well as rough pregame odds in the final week’s slate of games.
Feel free to hang out with me here, or on Twitter, or not at all. Go Cowboys.
The Cowboys came into today with a 5% chance of making the playoffs. After huge plays from Andy Dalton to all three wideouts—most recently that 69-yard catch and run by Amari Cooper—they're now up to 21% odds.
Anthony Brown picks off Hurts at the goal line, and a couple possessions later, the Cowboys odds of making the playoffs are about as high as they can get today: 23.8%. The Eagles have the ball, trailing 30-17 with less than 4 minutes to play.
The Cowboys are back up to 23% odds of making the playoffs after the Eagles squander a post-interception scoring opportunity. If Dallas can close out this game, they'll have five times better playoff odds than they came into the day with.
The Eagles fail to convert on 3rd and 20. The Cowboys are now heavy favorites to win today, and still have a greater than 1-in-5 chance to make the playoffs.
The Cowboys are alive in the playoff race in no small part because of Washington falling behind 20-3 vs. the Panthers. Their struggles essentially double the Cowboys playoff odds, making everything that happens in the Dallas game twice as important.
The Cowboys now have a 12.6% chance of making the playoffs after Gallup's tremendous touchdown catch before halftime. They lead 20-17, and get the ball to start the second half.
Welcome to the chat! The Cowboys dropped to a 9.3% chance of making the playoffs after settling for that field goal on 4th-and-goal. I'll be tracking these odds live throughout the game.
The Cowboys came into today with a 5% chance of making the playoffs. After huge plays from Andy Dalton to all three wideouts—most recently that 69-yard catch and run by Amari Cooper—they're now up to 21% odds.
What is happening?!
!!!
16.9%! CeeDee Lamb brings the Cowboys playoff odds back to better than 1-in-6 for the first time since late November.
Keep in mind the Cowboys came into today with a 5% chance of making the playoffs. They've more than tripled those odds so far today.
Can we talk about how well Zeke has run the ball today? I feel like the first guy has not gotten him down once.
Yeah they've definitely gotten better results on Zeke rushes than Pollard rushes today.
Zeke: 12 rushes (7 successful, 1 for a first down)
Pollard: 5 rushes (1 successful for a first down)
How many playoff games would we have to scrape through before a broken ankle can be healed?
I'm not sure, but I think the earliest timelines we saw a few months ago had Dak returning a few weeks into the playoffs at earliest.
Yeah I remember vaguely something along the lines of a non-delayed NFL season makes it like midweek through conference championship weeks
Thanks to everyone who stopped by! Let's do this again next week when there's 4 times as much Cowboys playoff probability on the line.
Update on odds for each event. Barring some weird tie scenarios, the Cowboys need all four of these to go their way in order to make the playoffs.
1. Cowboys beat Eagles: 99.5% chance
2. Panthers beat Washington: 100% chance
3. Cowboys beat Giants: ~50% chance
4. Eagles beat Washington: ~50% chance
Cowboys playoff odds: 1 in 4 (!)
Anthony Brown picks off Hurts at the goal line, and a couple possessions later, the Cowboys odds of making the playoffs are about as high as they can get today: 23.8%. The Eagles have the ball, trailing 30-17 with less than 4 minutes to play.
The Cowboys are back up to 23% odds of making the playoffs after the Eagles squander a post-interception scoring opportunity. If Dallas can close out this game, they'll have five times better playoff odds than they came into the day with.
Eagles make things interesting as Slay picks off Dalton. The Cowboys live playoff odds dropped from 22% to 19% on the play.
The Eagles fail to convert on 3rd and 20. The Cowboys are now heavy favorites to win today, and still have a greater than 1-in-5 chance to make the playoffs.
The Cowboys need *all* of these things to happen to make the playoffs:
Cowboys beat Eagles: 53% chance of happening
Panthers beat Washington: 95% chance
Cowboys beat Giants: ~50% chance
Eagles beat Washington: ~50% chance
Combined DAL playoff odds: 12.6%
(Win probability numbers courtesy nflfastR and FiveThirtyEight)
Eagles beating Washington feels the most problematic
Yeah, it's tough to account for the fact that if we're still in the hunt next week, the Eagles will have little to play for.
If its Haskins I'll feel decent
The Cowboys are alive in the playoff race in no small part because of Washington falling behind 20-3 vs. the Panthers. Their struggles essentially double the Cowboys playoff odds, making everything that happens in the Dallas game twice as important.
The Cowboys now have a 12.6% chance of making the playoffs after Gallup's tremendous touchdown catch before halftime. They lead 20-17, and get the ball to start the second half.
Welcome to the chat! The Cowboys dropped to a 9.3% chance of making the playoffs after settling for that field goal on 4th-and-goal. I'll be tracking these odds live throughout the game.