Dallas City News

The Cowboys are in desperate need of a win as they head to Atlanta to take on the Falcons. They came out of their bye with a loss to the 49ers, and are now officially on another losing streak. On the bright side, though, they drew fewer penalties than the 49ers in the loss. Let’s check out their penalty numbers for the year:

After last week, Dallas has fallen out of the top 10 in penalties called, sitting at 11th in total flags drawn. The impact of those flags is even less, as they rank 18th in penalty yardage. The Cowboys have also had five more penalties called against the home team for the season; only 10 teams have a higher net positive difference right now.

There aren’t many things going right for the Cowboys this year, but their penalty luck seems to have finally started going their way. The officiating assignment for this week’s matchup could very well continue that trend too.

Scott Novak is in the midst of his sixth season as a head referee and 11th total year in the NFL. Prior to that, he worked for a significant period of time as a referee in the Big 12 conference, and also called the 2012 National Championship game between Alabama and LSU.

When Novak first became an NFL head referee, he almost immediately established himself as a “let ‘em play” official who was more strict on the visiting team. Each of his first two seasons saw Novak’s crew in the bottom third in penalties called and also having one of the larger rates of penalties called on the away team.

However, the 2021 season saw a sharp turn for Novak. While he hasn’t become an overly strict official, Novak’s penalty totals have shot up considerably with the exception of last year, when he was dead last in the league. More intriguing, though, is that Novak made a complete flip from being harsher on the road team to calling more penalties on the home team every year since 2021. So far this year, Novak’s crew is right in the middle of the league in total flags thrown, but he owns one of the larger rates of penalties called on the home team.

Another trend for Novak’s crew, and one that’s been around even before his shift in 2021, is being one of the worst officials for the home team as far as record goes. The home team is 40-46 when Novak is on the call and, more specifically, they have just a 36% hit rate against the spread, the worst mark under any official since 2019 (Novak’s first year). In other words, even when the home team does win, they have to do it by the skin of their teeth.

That bodes well for the Cowboys, who are just three-point underdogs in this game. If Novak’s career trend continues, this could be a razor thin game. That said, home teams are 6-1 this season under Novak, with the lone road win being the Eagles with a fourth quarter comeback over the Saints, who later revealed that quarterback Derek Carr had been playing hurt.

Novak has called five Cowboys games throughout his career, with three of them coming on the road. Dallas is 1-2 in those games, with one being a loss to the Giants in Dak Prescott’s rookie year and another resulting in a loss to the Patriots during a downpour. Their lone road win came on Halloween in 2021, when Cooper Rush beat Kirk Cousins, Mike Zimmer, and the Vikings on Sunday Night Football.

Novak has only called two Falcons games, and both came in the 2021 season. Holding true to form, Atlanta won their one road game under Novak and lost their one home game. That’s a very small sample size fort Novak as far as calling Falcons games goes.

All in all, this officiating assignment should benefit the Cowboys more than anything. Novak is generally good news for road teams, though it hasn’t resulted in many road wins this year so far. Still, the way Novak officiates games should create an environment where the Cowboys can at least keep it close and have a chance to win.