Dallas leads the league in penalties. Some penalties can be pretty irritating, because they are totally avoidable. I don’t mean holding, or PI or whatever. Those happen, and are always annoying, but you expect them. I’m referring to the penalties like lining up in the neutral zone. Unnecessary roughness. These are completely unnecessary penalties that are the cause of playing undisciplined football. The coaches need to figure out some way to clean it up a bit. Maybe we can overcome 11 penalties against the Chargers. Can we against the Eagles in a few weeks?
The NFL does need to rework their rules regarding hitting a QB when he’s sliding. The refs called helmet to helmet on Kearse, but Herbert didn’t slide until Kearse was already in the process of making the tackle. It appeared to me that Herbert slid into helmet to helmet contact, and a penalty was called that benefited his team.
The clock management at the end the half. Oh my. That was bad. 8 seconds left. One timeout. Mike didn’t want to go for it. That’s… incredibly lame. Gutless. 8 seconds and a timeout left. Dak was 15/20 at this point in the game. You need to take that shot, and not doing so is gutless. If you want to tell me “well maybe he didn’t trust Dak”, I get it, but I don’t think that is the case. And if it is the case, it doesn’t matter, because I think a coach needs to take that shot with any QB they are lining up under center at the moment. And yeah, we won by 3 points, but I don’t believe I’m thinking too aggressively here.
The defense has issues. There are definitely holes to be addressed. That being said, it’s a good enough defense to win a championship. The pass rush can be ruthless at times, and Dan Quinn is a phenomenal talent scout. Look at guys like DaRon Bland and Marquese Bell. A defense that can rush the passer and create turnovers like this one can is a championship caliber defense.
When the team eventually sputters, it will be because of the offense. From what I’m seeing from this previous game, and this season overall, making the playoffs and eventually getting bounced by the 49ers in the Divisional round is probably in our future.
Mike McCarthy’s play calling is, oftentimes, bootycheeks. Bootycheeks. Part of me wants to blame this on Schottenheimer. I didn’t know why he was brought in when he was hired. I still don’t know. I remember a comment I saw from a Jets fan when Dallas hired him – "on purpose?"
Yes, I know. I am aware. I know Dak this, and Dak sucks, and Dak missed Ferguson down the seam, and Dak caused World War II, and we should start Lance.
But that doesn’t make McCarthy’s play calling any less cheekish. I would rather see Prescott end up with 350 yards, 3 TDs and 3 INTs by throwing the football down the field like a man, instead of all this going 28/37 and a TD. Know why? Because seeing the latter stat line means that if the defense didn’t have a stellar game, and maybe a takeaway for a TD, we didn’t win it.
Mike’s gameplan worked fine enough against the Chargers, who Chargered the game away, as they usually do. But against the big boys of NFL offenses – KC, SF, PHI – teams that can score a lot of points against good defenses like ours, the offense needs to be able to score points.
So what would I, with my average sized brain and-NFL-fan-who-posts-on-a-forum level of football knowledge like to see realistically happen? I believe a few changes are possible. Not likely, but possible.
1 – Lamb is the best player on offense right now. He needs like 10 targets a game. Or more. Why not? It is one of the few things that consistently works for this team. The run game is inconsistent. Dak is inconsistent. Gallup cosplays Houdini for stretches, and cannot get separation. Pollard is still returning to form. So we have Lamb, who is awesome. Cooks is really good. He has been his entire career. The ball needs to go to them more.
2 – Less Gallup, and more Turpin. Gallup is not getting separation. Turpin can with his speed alone. Cooks and Turpin both have the jets to stretch a defense.
3 – Creativity in general. Quick plays that are designed to get the ball into the hands of our biggest playmakers. More motion. More movement pre-snap. According to this tweet from John Owning, the Cowboys are currently below NFL average in motion. Why? Why are plays not being designed that make it just a little bit more tough on the defense?
4 – More Dowdle.
That’s essentially it. What else can realistically be fixed right now? The OL needs to be better obviously. That will hopefully work itself out. We know what Dak is.
It’s not all bad. I still have a little optimism. I don’t know how much confidence to say I have in this team – I believe that they’re a playoff team, one that is almost definitely capable of beating whoever they play in the Wildcard round. Can they win in the divisional, against Philadelphia or San Fransisco, away? Unsure with the former, and a definite no with the latter.
But, anything is possible. We saw the 2007 Giants. The 2012 Ravens. With a little magic, any playoff team can win a Championship.
So have faith. Is it technically possible for the Cowboys to go on a 2007 Giants-like tear and win the Super Bowl? Yes. Yes it is. And I will darn well cheer for them to do just that. It would be one of the best stories about Cowboys ever told, right behind Red Dead Redemption 2, but at least on the level of the 2010 True Grit.
