What’s different about this team?

DALLAS — December is upon us, and it’s time to crown the Cowboys once again. This time it actually matters.

While Dallas is still searching for a little help in terms of catching Philadelphia in the NFC East, a race that will decide which team must toil on the road perhaps throughout the playoffs, the Cowboys once more have claimed the NFC lead in points differential. It feels like a statistic that should matter more than it sometimes does.

Thanks in large part to their annihilation of Minnesota two weeks ago, the Cowboys have outscored opponents by 92 points this season. That’s the best in the conference, just ahead of the Eagles’ +87, with the 49ers’ +76 not too far back. Let me explain first why I think this should be a relevant set of numbers.

We choose to break down football into 60minute games to determine wins and losses. But if you think about it in its simplest form, on every play a team is either trying to score or prevent someone from scoring.

Those point totals over more than 11 hours should tell us something. When you have lost three games and you’re still outscoring your opponents at the rate of more than eight points per hour, you’re winning a heck of a lot of plays.

Of course, the Cowboys led the NFC in points differential in 2021 as well, outscoring foes by a whopping 172 points. And it meant nothing once the team lined up against San Francisco in the first round of the playoffs.

But last year’s team didn’t feast on a 37-point win over the club with the second-best record in the NFC. The Cowboys played in a dismal division, beating the Giants by 39 points in two games, Washington by 49 and even Philly (which hadn’t figured out its identity in September and then sat most starters in January) by 45.

In those six division games, Dallas was a plus-133. In the other 11, the Cowboys were plus-39.

The division wins provided a misleading sense of self-confidence. When the Cowboys played playoff-bound teams last year like Tampa Bay, Arizona, Kansas City or Las Vegas, they lost. Those games provided plenty of indications that this was a flawed team unable to live up to some of its gaudier statistics compiled against weak competition.

The 2022 season feels different. The 2022 season looks different.

Yes, the Cowboys lost a game in Philly and another to Tampa Bay, which may be playoff-bound despite a 5-6 record in the horrible NFC South. But they have another calling card that should serve them well, come playoff time. Dallas’ 5-1 record against teams currently with winning records is best in the NFL.

The Cowboys swept the Giants, beat Washington handily and knocked off Cincinnati in probably the most important game of the season. After losing badly to Tampa Bay and seeing Dak Prescott injured in the process, then watching as the Bengals fought back to tie them 17-17 in Week 2, that was a game that easily could have gone in favor of the AFC champs. And who knows where an 0-2 start might have sent this squad?

It didn’t happen. That game began a trend of Dallas winning close games against good teams. Then the Cowboys went one step further in Minnesota. Dallas’ 37point win represents the biggest margin against a team with a winning record in the league this season, topping Buffalo’s 41-7 win over Tennessee.

Records against winning teams are worth watching. We think of the Commanders as a team that has rapidly improved to get to 7-5. Yet their upset of the Eagles is their only victory in five tries against winning teams.

The Cowboys know all about that, having gone 6-0 in the East last year and 6-5 outside the division. This year they inhabit a significantly stronger division and have one blemish on that 3-1 card with games remaining against the Eagles and Commanders.

I’m not sure we will learn a lot more about this Cowboys team until Philly shows up on Christmas Eve. But it’s already proving to be a more accomplished squad than last year’s team.