After 2 weeks, Dallas Cowboys have crashed down to Earth with plenty of work to do
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If anyone on The Dallas Morning News’ writing staff should have seen the Cardinals as the team that would bring the Cowboys crashing down to Earth, it’s probably the guy who, as a high school sophomore, bought his single seat in Sec. 24 of the Cotton Bowl for the infamous 38-0 Cardinals’ rout of Dallas on Monday Night Football back in 1970.
Even I missed this one.
Having understood for years that not just Cowboys fans but the entire national media tends to climb aboard the Dallas bandwagon at the first hint of success, after attending both New York games and watching the Cowboys crush their opponents 70-10, I failed to register this is just more of the same. In the wake of Arizona 28, Dallas 16, it’s clear that nothing has changed beyond the fact that Mike McCarthy’s West Coast attack or Texas Coast — whatever it’s called — is the rare offense that can be efficient and immobile at the same time.
Dallas scored 16 points Sunday against a team that gave up 31 after halftime last week…to the New York Giants. Dallas, inexplicably, called run after run after run near the goal line Sunday, bleeding the clock while down two touchdowns before Dak Prescott delivered his first interception of the season to seal the upset for winless Arizona.
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The Cowboys have run afoul of bad luck, poor play, miserable coaching against the Cardinals in the past. It’s the place where Jason Garrett iced his own kicker a few years back. But Sunday, the Cowboys found a way to hand quarterback Joshua Dobbs his first NFL win at age 28. This is the same Dobbs who started for Tennessee in late December last year when the Titans benched key players on both sides of the ball including running back Derrick Henry and defensive lineman Jeffrey Simmons. Dallas won that game, 27-13.
In Arizona, I would say Dobbs is surrounded by more talent but not much more. But new head coach Jonathan Gannon brings an Eagles attitude to the defense, and the Cards proved that any belief that Dallas had exorcised all of its run defense demons was way too premature.
Remember last Sunday when the Jets’ Breece Hall and Dalvin Cook and Michael Carter each failed to register 10 yards rushing? The Cardinals ran 30 times for 222 yards. Even if Prescott had avoided that late interception and found the end zone for the only time in the second half, there are no indications that Arizona would have been forced to punt for that final scoring chance the Cowboys needed. Arizona never turned the ball over against the unit that chalked up 10 takeaways against the Giants/Jets, and the Cards punted only twice.
It’s hard to understand the confusion that Dallas demonstrated while getting pushed around by the Cards’ running game, Micah Parsons gesturing repeatedly to Leighton Vander Esch that he did not know where to line up. Few teams are likely to be fooled by a Cardinals’ offense that, until Kyler Murray’s uncertain return, will be guided by a journeyman quarterback Arizona claimed late in August.
But Arizona came equipped with two plays that baffled the Cowboys, once lining up little slot receiver Rondale Moore in the backfield and later hiding rookie wide receiver Michael Wilson at tight end. Moore scored on a 45-yard run when safety Jayron Kearse put himself out of position to make the tackle, and a wide, wide-open Wilson gathered in a 69-yard pass from Dobbs to set up Arizona’s crucial fourth-quarter touchdown.
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The Cowboys are two weeks away from a trip to San Francisco to face their playoff nemesis, and they make their annual Philadelphia visit a few weeks later on Nov. 5. I’m not suggesting these are the club’s only trouble spots in the NFL season’s first half. A team that loses to Arizona is capable of hitting all sorts of potholes.
It’s just that if Dallas is still hoping to prove it has learned from the recent past and is capable of elevating its game to the Super Bowl levels the Eagles and 49ers have scaled in recent years, my gosh, there is work to be done. And while the defense getting shredded by the Cards is probably the biggest surprise from Sunday, it’s this slow-motion offense that has me wondering if Dallas is on any kind of upward trajectory.
In a game in which the Cowboys were behind from the time they got their first offensive possession until the gun sounded, Prescott threw 40 times and gained just 249 yards. Just below seven yards per attempt last week, he barely eclipsed six yards per attempt in Arizona. The West Coast offense emphasizes the cautious, short-game throws and I get that the quarterback needed to clean up his act after last year’s interception-fest. But Prescott always leans towards the cautious side anyway — his major difference, good or bad, from the Tony Romo era — and now it seems even in a hurry-up offense, this team takes forever to move the ball down the field. Their red zone offense has fallen off a cliff, now 6-for-15 in scoring touchdowns when inside the 20 this season.
The Cowboys managed one touchdown in 60 minutes in the desert Sunday. It makes you wonder if New England coach Bill Belichick will be focused on taking away Rico Dowdle next Sunday at AT&T Stadium.
Twitter: @TimCowlishaw
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