What a bunch of horse manure. Sorry for such a vivid description, but organic soil fertilizer is the only way to accurately capture the aroma of the broken spirit of this Cowboys fan. After months of begrudgingly building up excitement for this Dallas Cowboys football team, this is our reward. Maybe a little of that’s on us, but they get us every time. Every. Time.
And losing to the New York Giants? For perspective, we’re talking about a football team that hasn’t won 10 games in a single season since
Dak Prescott was a rookie. A team so traditionally incompetent that they usually secure a top-10 draft pick, miss on a defender, and then rinse and repeat the following year. We count on those games for wins and confidence boosters.
But this current Giants team is pretty good, which is a painful thing to type. Especially since they’re so hateable. Cam Skatteboo looks like a high school bully from an ’80s movie who hangs out with his Cobra Kai buddies. And his headbutt compatriot, Jaxson Dart, is equally nauseating. His arrogance is so insufferable that John Harbaugh had to get on him during practice because he was taunting his own teammates. Rivals or not, these guys are remarkably easy to hate.
But who cares about the stupid Giants? The real, existential dread today comes from the Cowboys. There is plenty of blame, but the coaching staff will be the recipient of our complaints today.
The new season began with two horrible plays that went nowhere. A one-yard stuff of Javonte Williams, and an incomplete pass intended for CeeDee Lamb. Just like that’s it’s third-and-long against the one thing the Giants defense can supposedly do well. Rush the quarterback. The Cowboys answer with a quick slant to George Pickens in what looks like a drive-sustainer, only replay shows he was just inches short of the first-down marker.
No problem. Just sneak it. We all were thinking it. They’re at their own 37-yard line, but if you can’t get a few inches, you might as well just pack this thing up and head back to Texas. Let’s GOTI this thing already!
Nope. Instead, they subject us to that embarrassing pre-snap charade where they are trying to get the Giants to jump offsides. So annoying. Please stop doing that. First possession of the year – THREE. AND. OUT. Yay!
Why am I whining about one silly possession? Well, because the Cowboys only had six of them on the night. As it turned out, each one was pretty important. We’ll get to the why in a minute, but if you look at the Cowboys’ offensive possessions, it went like this…
Punt
Punt
Touchdown
Interception
Touchdown
Touchdown
Note: We aren’t counting the three-play possession with only 14 seconds left in the first half. Instead, let’s focus on the six real possessions.
There are two interesting things about this list. First, the Cowboys scored a touchdown on half of their possessions in the game. If teams do that, they’re usually going to light up the scoreboard. That’s a lot of touchdowns. But when they only get six total chances, half isn’t as rewarding.
Equally as aggravating as the lack of opportunity was the grueling labor required for the Cowboys offense to move the ball. Nothing came easy. There was little creativity. Running back Javonte Williams had to fight for every inch, usually first running into the back of his own blockers. Dak Prescott had to deliver a lot of tight throws, and their most explosive chunk plays on the night came courtesy of pass interference penalties.
Okay, enough dumping on the offense. Let’s switch it up.
The Cowboys defense was terrible on Sunday night. For starters, they couldn’t stop the run. The defense allowed 165 rushing yards in this game, the most rushing yards they’ve allowed since Week 8 of last season when the Denver Broncos ran all over them. You remember that game. It was awful. That’s what we got on Sunday night.
Instead of Christian Parker’s new scheme confusing the quarterback, the quarterback repeatedly confused them. Dart had them faked out all night, with defenders running the wrong way, and playing the chase game 10 yards down the field. It was terrible.
About the only thing worse than their inability to stop the run was their coverage scheme. It’s hard to know exactly what the issue was, but watching the Giants’ receivers wander so comfortably in wide-open spaces was tough to witness. That was not the defense we signed up to watch. We saw that last season.
Frustration continued as we sat back and essentially watched none of the new guys make an impact. Rashan Gary? Von Miller? Did those guys play?
Caleb Downs had a nice play where he sacked Dart that would have stood out more if the ball didn’t flutter right into the hands of a Giants’ offensive lineman, but other than that, it was a quiet night from the team’s new safeties. Even the well-anticipated aggressiveness of rookie linebacker Jaishawn Barham ran himself into an encroachment penalty on a crucial third and short. Fantastic.
Everyone knows there will be growing pains with a new defensive coaching staff. It’s expected. Even so, there are still things you are hoping to see. We didn’t see them.
This is only one game, and nobody should be running for cover as if the sky is falling. It’s not. Again. It’s just one game. But it was a terribly coached game. The team looked completely unready for the season and repeatedly committed the silliest infractions you can do in a football game. Offsides (twice), holding, illegal hands to the face. Pure silliness. And many of them came on crucial third-down situations. The coaches had to waste a precious second-half timeout when they only had 10 players on the field. It was pure sloppiness. There’s no other way to explain it.
For the Cowboys, this is a tough one to swallow for a very simple reason. They just weren’t ready to play. Letting an opposing offense control the entire game to the point where they only got two second-half possessions was utterly painful to watch.
The team must get their act together, and get it together quick. They suddenly find themselves in a crucial game against the Washington Commanders next week. If they drop another one, they’ll head to Baltimore, where they could likely start the season 0-3. And remember, the first half of the season is the easy part. Things get really difficult come November.
