Cowboys at Jets referee report: A rookie ref looms for Dallas

The Cowboys are heading on a road trip up north, set to play in a stadium they’re very familiar with but against a Jets team they’re not as used to facing. Coming off last week’s tie, the Cowboys have to be feeling anxious to get back on the field and compete for a real outcome, win or lose. But they’ll run into a rookie head coach, in former Cowboys defensive back Aaron Glenn, as well as a rookie referee.

Before we dive into the man leading this week’s officiating crew, let’s take a look at how the Cowboys stack up in the penalty arena so far this year.

Cowboys Penalties Week by WeekCowboys PenaltiesPenalty YardsOpponent PenaltiesPenalty Yardsat Eagles4429110vs Giants1210614160at Bears425641vs Packers1195753Total3126836364Last week’s game marked the first time this season that the Cowboys drew more penalties than their opponent. Even still, Dallas is 12th in total penalties assessed to them. They’re now tied for the league lead in special teams penalties, while offense and defense are not even in the top 10.

The Jets, meanwhile, are 10th in penalties but fourth (!) in penalty yards, meaning that when they make a mistake, it’s a big one. Most of that yardage has come because of the defense, which has given up the third-most first downs due to a penalty this year. Get this: the Cowboys offense leads the league in first downs earned by penalty.

That will be an interesting factor to keep an eye on in this one, especially because the game will be called by a rookie referee:

Alex Moore has had an ample career officiating college games, first working with the American Athletic Conference before migrating to the SEC. He then worked with the USFL in their inaugural year before getting the call to join the NFL, first as an umpire. Moore was then promoted to head referee ahead of this season.

This will mark just his fourth NFL game leading his own crew. As such, there isn’t a whole lot to go off of with Moore and his reputation, or even any real tendencies. Typical trends for first-time referees in the NFL see that crew being towards the top of the league in penalties, and as such, Moore’s crew leads the league through four weeks.

Before his promotion, Moore worked on crews led by both Bill Vinovich and Shawn Smith, both of whom have called a Cowboys game already this year. Vinovich called their overtime win over the Giants, one that saw plenty of flags fly both ways, and Smith called the season opener; interestingly, Smith has not called a game since that one, which featured him ejecting Jalen Carter for spitting on Dak Prescott.

While Moore has been a bit liberal with the penalty flag, he’s been fairly even between the home and road teams, with just two more total flags on the visitor thus far. Ironically, the home team has been the more penalized team in three of those four games, and the home team has also won all three of those games. The only road team to win a game with Moore on the call was the Patriots, who scored 10 unanswered points in the final seven minutes of their game with the Dolphins.

That game also marked the only one in which the favored team did not win outright. To that end, it bears mentioning that Dallas is favored by 2.5 points despite being the road team, and the general rule of thumb is that homefield advantage is worth three points in betting markets.

One trend that has certainly stuck out for Moore: he’s unafraid to penalize a team for sloppy play. Every single one of his games so far has seen at least one team hit 11+ penalties. As you can see above, the Cowboys have done that twice already; the Jets just did that for the first time this past week against the Dolphins.

That can’t bode well for the Cowboys. However, they’ve also had two games with just four penalties, and have routinely been the more disciplined team so far this year. It’s hard to know exactly what to expect from such a new referee, but the Cowboys will need to play clean football this week. They won’t get away with anything with Moore on the call.