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Earlier this week, our own KD Drummond caused quite a stir with an article suggesting the Cowboys may have the best passing attack in the NFC East.

That premise was hotly debated and the discussion quickly veered off topic, so today we refocus on the Cowboys’ passing game with the help of a few very simple stats.

1,000+ receiving yards in a season is a stat that is correctly labeled as a season milestone for a player who achieves it. When a player puts up those kinds of numbers, he was at least very successful, perhaps even dominant against most opponents.

Last season, 16 NFL teams had one player who caught more than 1,000 yards. One team had two players above the 1,000 yard receiving threshold. Care to take a guess which team that might have been? The Packers, Colts or Saints? Perhaps the Texans?

No, no, no and no.

The only team with two players who each had more than 1,000 receiving yards were the Dallas Cowboys. Miles Austin notched 1,041 yards, Jason Witten just barely made it with 1,002 yards. Not bad, considering the Cowboys played with their backup QB for most of the season in an offense that was far from fully operational.

But was 2010 just a fluke for the Cowboys? Let’s extend the scope of this 1,000 receiving-yards analysis a little further, and look at the stats from 2006-2010. Off the top of your head, how many teams do you think had more 1,000-yard receivers than the Cowboys? More than three? More than five?

Before we answer that question, let’s first look at how many and which Cowboys players exceeded 1,000 receiving yards over that period. That this period corresponds to Tony Romo’s career as a starter for the Cowboys should not really come as a big surprise to anybody.

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Player Yards Player Yards Player Yards Player Yards Player Yards Terrell Owens 1,180 Terrell Owens 1,355 Terrell Owens 1,052 Miles Austin 1,320 Miles Austin 1,041 Terry Glenn 1,047 Jason Witten 1,145 – -
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Jason Witten 1,030 Jason Witten 1,002 The Cowboys have players 1,000 receiving yards nine times in the last five years. 2008 was the only year in which the Cowboys didn’t have two players hit that statistical milestone.

So how does this compare in the division? Over the past five years, the Cowboys have more 1,000+ yard receivers than all three NFC East rivals combined: The Giants and Eagles each have three, the Redskins two since 2006. So much for that discussion.

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