Blogging The Boys
Sunday was a near perfect game for the Dallas Cowboys.
The Dallas Cowboys are back in the win column and just one more victory away from reaching .500 on the year. They pulled out a gutsy win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers despite being eliminated from the playoffs earlier in the day, and the spirited performance was encouraging, to say the least. Let’s hand out some grades.
This may have been Cooper Rush’s best game ever. The Cowboys knew they’d need to throw the ball more against an elite run defense, and Rush delivered in spades. He hit on 74.3% of his passes and finished with 292 passing yards and a touchdown.
Crucially, Rush tested the Buccaneers deep. Coming into this game, Rush had one of the lowest rates in the league of pass attempts that traveled beyond 10 yards downfield. In this game, he connected on five of his seven attempts, with one of them being a touchdown. Rush did exactly what he needed to do in this game to beat a really talented Buccaneers defense.
Grade: A+
Recognizing that the Buccaneers have one of the top run defenses in the league, Dallas did not come into this game trying to run the ball like they have in recent weeks. Unsurprisingly, Rico Dowdle had his 100+ yards rushing streak snapped. In fact, Dowdle averaged just 1.8 yards on the night.
Of course, the Cowboys were also using the run game primarily to keep the defense honest, preventing them from simply pinning their ears back and rushing the passer. To that end, it worked, so it’s hard to ding these running backs all that much in this one.
Grade: B-
CeeDee Lamb. Need I say more? The receiver continues to stack elite performances, and he had several jaw dropping catches in this one while fighting through excruciating shoulder pain. His toughness has marked an important moment of growth for Lamb this season.
Beyond the star, Dallas got some great contributions in the passing game. Jalen Tolbert had another impressive touchdown catch, and nearly hauled in a tough sideline catch right before halftime. Brandin Cooks and Jake Ferguson had big plays in big moments too. This group was on their A game in this one.
Grade: A+
The poor results in the run game were at least partially due to the offensive line not creating enough room to run, but again, this was against an elite run defense. As mentioned, the run game was designed in this game to keep the pass rush at bay somewhat, and it worked.
Cooper Rush was pressured on just 19.4% of his dropbacks despite having the third-most dropbacks of the year. Tampa Bay has had a lower pressure rate in just two other games this season. Only one offensive lineman - Brock Hoffman - surrendered multiple pressures and Rush was sacked just once. All in all, this was a best case scenario performance for...
