The Seahawks were once known for their dominant defense with a secondary dubbed the Legion of Boom Chris Jones Jersey , and featured some of the best at each position, including Cliff Avril, Michael Bennett, Bobby Wagner, Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, and Kam Chancellor. Only Wagner will still be on the field Saturday night. Furthermore, several of the architects of that defense are no longer there, as guys like Gus Bradley and Dan Quinn have taken jobs elsewhere. And of course there’s Kris Richard, who was the Seahawks defensive coordinator last year and was fired before taking a similar role in Dallas. Suffice it to say that this defense is not what it once was. While they haven’t been terrible, the Seattle defense has regressed significantly and failed to finish top ten in any of the three yardage categories, any of the three efficiency ratings, and finished just outside the top ten in scoring defense. Looking at the roster, it seems as if this unit is going through a transition, as they have several short-term free agents in key roles as they usher in younger talent. This includes Barkevious Mingo, whose 48 tackles, one sack, and two forced fumbles have been solid in limited snaps, and Dion Jordan, who has contributed 1.5 sacks and six hits on the quarterback in a small role. Then there’s the young guys that have been flashing potential for Seattle, specifically on the defensive line. At the 1-technique, Quinton Jefferson has been very impressive while putting up three sacks and a whopping 15 QB hits. Jarran Reed, a former standout at Alabama, has locked down the 3-technique spot next to Jefferson, as he’s got 50 total tackles, 10.5 sacks, two fumble recoveries, and 24 QB hits. All of that is outdone by Frank Clark, though, who’s got 13 sacks, two fumble recoveries, three forced fumbles, and 27 QB hits. The defensive line has had success at rushing the passer.And then there’s Bobby Wagner, the lone remaining prominent piece of that former defensive group. At 28-years old, Wagner is still going strong and has been the best inside linebacker in the NFL this year. His stat line is ridiculous, as Wagner has 138 tackles, six tackles for loss, one sack, eight QB hits, two forced fumbles, a fumble recovery, a 98-yard pick six Terrance Williams Color Rush Jersey , and 11 passes defensed, which is more than any defensive backs on the team. Unfortunately for Seattle, the rest of the linebacker corps hasn’t been that great. KJ Wright has missed time throughout the year with injuries and played in only five games, though he is a full go for Saturday night. Mingo’s contribution have been solid but not as much of a supplement as the team would surely like, and the midseason addition of Mychal Kendricks hasn’t panned out, as the troubled linebacker was placed on injured reserve. But the positive for the Seahawks is that Wagner is good enough to carry the linebackers. A near unstoppable force, Wagner will fly sideline-to-sideline and disrupt the offense whether it’s a run or pass play. Teams that have had success against this defense have devoted much of their offensive game-plan to stopping Wagner, and for Dallas this will be the same. The Cowboys could try a variety of things, including sending Dalton Schultz in on run plays to immediately get to the second level and block Wagner, or utilizing trap plays to get offensive linemen into the next level to take on the stud linebacker. However the Cowboys do it, they need to take Wagner out of things if they’re going to find success in this game. Where this defense struggles the most is in the secondary. With no Chancellor or Thomas, the Seahawks have relied on Bradley McDougald and Tedric Thompson as their starting safeties, and the drop off in talent has been very noticeable. Still, neither safety is a slouch in tackling, which is a positive. McDougald’s 78 tackles are second on the team behind Wagner, and he’s tied with Thomas for interceptions with three. Thompson has 57 tackles to his name and one interception. The bigger problem for this secondary is the cornerbacks. Tre Flowers, Shaquill Griffin, and Justin Coleman have all done a serviceable job but have clearly been the weakest point of the defense. Coleman is easily the best of the bunch, and his work out of the slot has yielded an interception and ten passes defensed. Griffin and Flowers, though, have been easily beat by better receivers. Going against Dallas will be a trial by fire for this secondary, as focus will naturally shift to Amari Cooper, but the likes of Michael Gallup, Cole Beasley, and a healthy Tavon Austin will still be around to benefit from that attention Cooper draws. All of this should culminate into a good day for Dak Prescott, who’s had a spectacular second half of the season, save for the Colts game, and seems to be well positioned to continue against this defense. The biggest obstruction to that will be the offensive line’s ability to prevent this young defensive line from creating pressure. If they can handle that, this offense could take advantage of a very average defense. Over the years, we’ve frequently used a metric called Approximate Value, a metric courtesy of Pro-Football-Reference.com, here on Blogging The Boys. If you’re a regular reader, you’re probably familiar with the metric, if not, or if you’re new to our little corner of the interwebs, consider this post your introduction.Approximate Value (AV) and the closely related Career Approximate Value (CAV) is something we’ve repeatedly used in the past, particularly during draft coverage. And as we get into the swing of all things draft related over the coming weeks and months, we’ll probably use it once again. So in order to get everybody on the same page, we’ll use this post as a detailed introduction to AV.”Approximate Value” was originally developed by Doug Drinen at Pro-Football-Reference.com and is designed to assign a specific value to any player at any position for any given year. Mike Kania and the PFR staff updated the numbers with the 2018 data earlier this week and made them available to anybody for free so if you’re into these sorts of metrics, you may want to give a shoutout to Mike and/or the PFR staff on Twitter.The algorithm behind AV weights position specific metrics (i.e. yards or points scored/allowed) with an indicator for durability (total games played and seasons as their team’s primary starter) and quality (Pro Bowl and All Pro nominations) and then normalizes all this at a team level.There is a difference between seasonal AV stats and the Career AV stats at pro-football-reference.com. While AV shows the Approximate Value for a single season, Career AV computes a weighted sum of the seasonal AV scores: 100% of the player’s best season, plus 95% of his 2nd-best season https://www.dallascowboysfanshop.com/Brett-Maher-Jersey , plus 90% of his 3rd-best season, plus 85% of his 4th-best season, and so on.There are many ways to use the AV or CarAV metric, and today we’ll use it to take a high-level view of the 2018 Cowboys roster. But before diving into the numbers, some more explanation from PFR:And like every stat, AV has its limitations.This is an important aspect to keep in mind: The AV numbers are relative. Players on good teams will score higher than players on bad teams, some positions (e.g. QB) will score higher than others (e.g. safeties), position groups (e.g. offensive linemen) will score roughly the same even if there are differences in actual performance.The AV number starts at 0 and has gone as high as 26 only once in the Super Bowl era: In 2006 Ladanian Tomlinson reached that mark when he set the NFL record for rushing TDs (28) and also topped the league with 1,815 rushing yards.Topping this year’s list is Patrick Mahomes with 22 points, followed by Jared Goff, Tyreek Hill, Darius Leonard, and Mitchell Schwartz, all with 18 points. AV points are fluid from one year to the next, but a rough scale for this year would look something like this: Six points or more are an indication of starter quality. But there are only 464 players in the league with an AV of six or more, an average of only about 15 players per NFL team. And that’s an important take-away here: No team in the league has starter quality at every position, especially not in the salary cap era. Keep that in mind as we review the Cowboys roster below, sorted in descending order from 14 points to zero.11 to 14 points - The Pro Bowlers1. Ezekiel Elliott (14 points)2. Dak Prescott (13)3. Zack Martin (12)4. Byron Jones (11)4. DeMarcus Lawrence (11)4. Leighton Vander Esch (11)The AV metric is heavily weighted toward rate or volume stats like passing yards or rushing yards, so it’s no surprise to see Elliott and Prescott top out the list for the Cowboys. The remaining players on this six-name list are all Pro Bowlers, and their post-season honors put them one notch above all other players. 8 to 9 points - The Smiths1. Jaylon Smith (9)2. Tyron Smith (8)If not for the fact that the universe is cruel and unjust, Jaylon Smith would have made the Pro Bowl and would be ranked higher here. As a Pro Bowler, Tyron Smith should have been up there with Zack Martin, but missing three games probably pushed him down.8 points - Bazinga!1. Amari CooperCooper ends up with eight points for the entire season. I can’t break down the AV number for his six games in Oakland and his nine games in Dallas. But considering that his production for both teams differed significantly (OAK: 47 yards/game, 1 TD; DAL: 81 yards/game, 6 TDs), its safe to assume that his performance in Dallas warrants a higher AV total. Prorating his performance in Dallas over 16 games gives Cooper 1,289 yards and 10 TDs. The Colts finished with the season with the same 10-6 record the Cowboys had, Colts WR T.Y. Hilton had 1,270 receiving yards, just six TDs, and wasn’t voted to the Pro Bowl either. And Hilton had 11 AV points, so that’s probably what Cooper would have gotten for a full season in Dallas as well. And that would make him a Top 10 receiver in the league.7 Points - To the Trenches!DT Tyrone CrawfordDT Antwaun WoodsRT La’El CollinsOC Joe LooneyFinally a metric that shows some love for the Cowboys defensive tackles! The AV metric likes what the Cowboys DTs did overall, and it awards Crawford and Woods for getting 15 starts each.Here’s what the AV metric sees: both Crawford and Woods made their share of plays, even if plays by the defensive ends were often more spectacular, and the Cowboys ranked fifth overall in run defense. On the other side of the line, Joey Looney gets some well-deserved recognition, as does La’el Collins.5 Points - The Future Franchise CornerstonesOG Connor Williams (10 starts)DT Maliek Collins (9 starts)CB Chidobe Awuzie (14 starts)S Xavier Woods (14 starts) Williams and Collins are ranked lower than the other O-line players or defensive tackles, but that simply reflects their availability. Williams started just 10 games, Collins nine.Awuzie and Woods were part of a secondary that allowed a defensive passer rating of 95.7, which ranked 22nd in the league. And while they both notched the prerequisite number of starts, they didn’t get any post-season honors and also didn’t show up much on the stat sheet with sacks or interceptions.5 Points - The Wiley VeteransWR Cole BeasleyS Jeff HeathAV is not as precise a metric as other metrics and doesn’t differentiate much between players in the same position group. The AV for a player is determined in part by the overall play of his position group, and when a single player doesn’t do anything to stand out from his position group Jeff Heath Jersey , he’ll likely get the the same AV as the total position group. AV says that that the defensive backs are an average starting group, and since neither Heath, Woods, or Awuzie did much to stand out from the group, they all get a similar AV.Beasley is ranked where he is because of his modest production (672 receiving yards) and lack of starts -he had just four starts despite playing in all 16 games. Four Points - The Young GunsCB Anthony Brown (10 starts)WR Michael Gallup(8 starts)OG Xavier Su’a-Filo (8 starts)LB Damien Wilson (7 starts)DE Taco Charlton (7 starts)Interesting mix of players here.Anthony Brown is ranked lower than his fellow defensive backs, but that’s due to his comparatively lower number of starts.Gallup is ranked lower than Beasley despite getting more starts, but his production (507 receiving yards) was lower than Beasley’s.The remaining players here all owe most of their points to AV’s inability to differentiate much between players in the same position group. Taco Charlton owes every single one of his points to that weakness in the algorithm.3 Points - The GeneralLB Sean LeeLee missed seven games entirely and only started in five. But calling him a borderline starter isn’t doing him any justice, so he gets his own category.Three Points - Situational PlayersTE Blake Jarwin (4 starts)DE Randy Gregory ( 1 start)K Brett MaherIf you’ve come this far despite feeling uneasy about this whole AV Thing, this might be the point where you lose it. How can Blake Jarwin, he of the three-TD, 119-yard game against the Giants, be ranked as a “situational player” just one spot above the “marginal contributors? And didn’t Stephen Jones just say Jarwin was the TE with the highest upside? And what’s all this silliness about Randy Gregory being a situational player?Well, AV is about production, not potential. And in 2018, Jarwin and Gregory only saw action in limited, and specialized roles. Gregory played 457 snaps mostly as a situational pass rusher, and Jarwin played 387 snaps as a blocking tight end for the most part and only emerged as a receiving option late in the season. Lack of starts and lack of stats puts both players in this 3-point bracket, but their future looks bright. Also, three points for the kicker.Two Points - The Marginal ContributorsTE Geoff Swaim (9 starts)WR Allen Hurns (7 starts)OT Cameron Fleming (3 starts)CB Jourdan Lewis (1 start)DE Dorance Armstrong (1 start)P Chris JonesThese are all players who received limited playing time for different reasons (plus the punter). One Point - The Role Players (ranked alphabetically):WR Tavon AustinS Kavon FrazierLS L.P. Ladouceur LB Justin MarchOG Adam Redmond DT Caraun Reid DT Daniel Ross TE Dalton Schultz RB Rod Smith LB Joe Thomas S Darian Thompson This is a bit of a tricky group. In principle, these are players who saw limited playing time, but for different reasons. Some of them are special teams aces, some were limited by injuries, some simply didn’t put up a lot of production, some of them simply are career backups.The question here is all about trajectories. Which of these players are pointing up and which are pointing down (some have already been released).Zero Points - The Scrubs:This list contains all players who were active on the game-day roster at least once in 2015 (and are not on IR and haven’t been cut) but did not record any significant stats or playing time.FB Jamize Olawale (114 regular snaps, 262 special teams snaps)WR Noah Brown (102, 126)TE Rico Gathers (146, 8)DT David Irving (56, 11)CB C.J. Goodwin (3, 50)LB Chris Covington (1, 28)RB Darius Jackson (18, 11)CB Treston Decoud (0, 3)WR Lance Lenoir (0, 0)QB Cooper Rush (0, 0)Before anybody starts hyperventilating about who the AV metric is calling a scrub, keep in mind that this is a measure of the performance in 2018, and most of these players did not accumulate any significant playing time as you can see by the snap count (offense or defense, special teams) behind each name.Of course, this is just one of many ways to look at the roster. But it does provide an alternative angle from which to evaluate the 2018 performance.