Blogging The Boys
The ‘Boys are back in town, coming home to Dallas after a mini-bye week following their loss to the Lions on Thursday Night Football. It’s another prime time matchup, hosting the Vikings this week. Both teams are feeling desperate, and neither can afford another loss on the season, so this should make for an interesting game. Nevertheless, our writers are feeling a touch of confidence.
Contain the run
The Vikings offense has struggled quite a bit this season. Last year’s first round pick, J.J. McCarthy, finally made his debut after his rookie season was marred by injury. But further injuries and uneven performances from the de facto rookie have complicated things for Minnesota.
They’re averaging just 5.1 yards per pass, 29th in the league, and McCarthy has been erratic at times. But Minnesota is also averaging 4.6 yards per carry, 10th-most in the league. Head coach and play-caller Kevin O’Connell has always had reliable running games, but this year he’s had to lean on it a bit more than usual. If the Cowboys can bottle up the run, they can force McCarthy into making some mistakes.
Rack up the YAC
Defensive coordinator Brian Flores is one of the best defensive minds in football, and he’s terrorized quarterbacks with his blitz-heavy scheme. Minnesota leads the league in blitz rate, doing most of their blitzing on first downs. Flores also frequently uses zone coverage behind his blitzes, tying it all together with heavily disguised coverage looks.
Well, Dak Prescott feasts on both. This season, he’s third in completion percentage, completion percentage over expected (CPOE), and total passing yards against the blitz. Against zone coverages, Prescott is hitting on 73.7% of his passes and averaging 7.4 yards per attempt. While his most explosive plays this year have typically come against man coverage (hello, George Pickens), he’s been exceptional at finding open receivers and letting them create after the catch when facing zone. Prescott is a nightmare scenario for Flores’ scheme, and he should give plenty of YAC opportunities to Pickens, CeeDee Lamb, Jake Ferguson, and others.
Now onto the predictions from your BTB writers…
Tom Ryle (6-6-1):
Never know which version of the Cowboys will show up, but here’s a guess.
Dallas 30, Minnesota 21.
Mike Poland (7-5-1):
The Cowboys are outscoring the Vikings by a long way. Cowboys are averaging 29 points per game, where the Vikings are way down at just 19 points per game.
This all boils down to the defense, and the Cowboys looked to have regressed after sitting in Cover 3 for the entirety of the game, meaning the linebackers got exposed. Hopefully lessons have been learned, and that’s a lot of hope right now. But let’s stay optimistic and say the Cowboys high power offense does enough to stay ahead.
Cowboys 28, Vikings 24.
Matt Holleran (6-6-1):
While the Cowboys still face an extremely uphill battle...
