Blogging The Boys
Every week, we gather to discuss the latest news about the Dallas Cowboys and seek our writer’s perspective on each headline. Welcome back to the roundtable. This week we have David Howman, Tom Ryle, Jess Haynie, and Sean Martin.
Mike: On the offensive side, Dallas strung together a pair of 90-yard touchdown marches and rattled off 30 unanswered points despite missing four starting linemen and playing without CeeDee Lamb, as well as KaVontae Turpin and Miles Sanders. Dak Prescott diced the Jets for four scores, two to Jake Ferguson, while Javonte Williams stacked 135 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns. Doing that on the road, behind a taped-together front, screams portable, bankable efficiency.
That doesn’t erase what the defense did. The Cowboys defense had been underwhelming so far this year, yet they totalled five sacks on a mobile and elusive Justin Fields, and Marist Liufau caused a brilliant fumble that flipped the script and really became the pivot point of the game. The lasting takeaway is simple, the Cowboys defense dictated the pace and ended drives through adversity with so many people being pessimistic about the defensive unit. That’s the part you can count on week to week.
Tom: It has to be the defense. While the way the offense functioned with so many missing pieces deserves a ton of praise, that was to a degree a continuation of what we’ve been seeing. But the pressure on Justin Fields was a quantum leap. Keep that up, and this is a dangerous team.
Sean: I’m going with the offensive efficiency, and I don’t think it’s particularly close although the defense changing things up was a very welcome sight as well. I have no idea how this isn’t a bigger storyline around the league, other than the narrative around Prescott already being what it is and not budging. Greg Olsen mentioned during the broadcast that most teams would struggle to move the ball down one starting lineman, and we’ve seen the Cowboys be completely hamstrung by one or more in the past. On Sunday they were down four and it never once seemed to matter. They called the same plays, got the same movement in the run game, and let Dak operate at an MVP-level once again. It was truly insane and hopefully a sign of more unstoppable things to come for an offense that will not only get healthier up front, but also out wide with Lamb waiting to return as well.
Howman: I’m sticking with the offense. I was encouraged by the defense, for sure, but Dallas was missing four starters on the offensive line and both CeeDee Lamb and KaVontae Turpin, and they still came a field goal away from a 40-burger. That’s a level of offensive efficiency we haven’t seen in quite some time.
Jess: I just finished an article about how special that offensive performance was given the o-line situation....
