Blogging The Boys
The Dallas Cowboys week seven performance was one that would make Dan Quinn proud… if he wasn’t on the opposing sideline as the head coach of the Washington Commanders. The Cowboys turned back the clock in a way and won in snowballing fashion, putting up points with big plays in the passing game, capitalizing off timely and needed plays from their defense, and making the winning plays on special teams to dominate 44-22.
Dak Prescott remained undefeated in his career at home against Washington, moving the Cowboys to 2-0-1 at home this season. With an offense that continues to roll and CeeDee Lamb back in the lineup against the Commanders, first-year head coach Brian Schottenheimer can begin to envision his team picking up where some of Mike McCarthy’s best teams left by off steamrolling opponents at home to keep this 2025 season on track. The Cowboys two home wins are also against division opponents, beating the Giants and Commanders. Dallas has scored at least 40 points in each home game from AT&T Stadium this year as well. They’ll have their chance to win in Washington on Christmas Day, win at the Giants in the last week of the regular season, and most importantly in this equation, still have their home game against the Eagles to look forward to in Week 12.
Those McCarthy-led teams that put up points at will were mostly complemented by aggressive Dan Quinn defenses that created splash plays with tackles for loss and takeaways. The Cowboys defense coming into this matchup was not doing any of these things under Matt Eberflus, but a completely new approach saw the Cowboys defense do their best Quinn impersonation by playing man coverage, getting after Jayden Daniels and later backup QB Marcus Mariota, and taking the ball away twice. The Cowboys also had two fourth-down stops that turned the Commanders over.
One of these takeaways went for a familiar-feeling defensive touchdown, with DaRon Bland getting a pick-six in a home game against the Commanders in the same color rush uniforms Dallas wore when Bland got a Thanksgiving interception return for a touchdown to break the single season record in 2023. This blew the game open for the Cowboys, allowing them to capitalize for the second time in four weeks on a game with at least three touchdown passes and no turnovers from Prescott.
The question from the jump of this season has been “who are the 2025 Cowboys?”, with so many new coaches and faces and the unthinkable trading away of Micah Parsons at the 11th hour. A valiant effort in a loss at the defending champions in week one, an overtime win that came down to the wire against the Giants, a tie that was one second away from being a win against Parsons’ Packers, road losses at the Panthers and Bears, and now their most well-rounded win against the Commanders to reach 3-3-1 all leaves this vital question unanswered still.
Whether or not this year’s Cowboys are just...
