The futility of the Dallas Cowboys offense on Thursday night against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was a surprise. Dak Prescott not being able to handle a lot of blitzing is out of character. He’s known as one of the best against the blitz in the league. Once the All-22 comes out maybe we can dig a little deeper into that problem.
The futility of the Cowboys defense, on the other hand, is no surprise. Christian Parker has had his struggles early getting the players accustomed to his new scheme. That was
expected to some extent. The blizzard of injuries also adds to the problem, especially with the cluster of missed games in the secondary. Dallas couldn’t even get their new weapon, Joey Porter Jr., on the field because of illness.
Sometimes you start to think the team is cursed on that side of the ball. You think maybe Parker is asking too much, or the scheme is flawed. All kinds of theories are floated about changes to the scheme. We get caught up in strategy and scheme, in alignments and run fits.
Then you see something like the picture below and all that just goes out the window. This is just basic football. This is not scheme, this is not assignment, this is five Cowboys players surrounding Bucky Irving, only to watch him escape for a 72-yard run.
How in the world is that not a short gain?
The Cowboys defense missed 12 tackles during the game. That number actually feels low. Multiple times they had running backs bottled up for short gains only for them to break through and pick up significant yards. They surrounded quarterback Jalon Daniels on plenty of dropbacks, but only came away with one sack.
The Bucs explosive plays were not just on a banged up secondary. They weren’t just on busted assignments or mental lapses. They exposed a Dallas defense that doesn’t even do the most fundamental things right.
Gang tackling should have been a given on that Irving run. It most certainly wasn’t. The Cowboys defense has so far to go, and the schedule only has so many games left.
