The 0-3 Houston Texans may have been the team carrying the “desperate” label into Sunday’s early kickoff against the Dallas Cowboys, but after the first 30 minutes of play, the visiting Cowboys at 1-2 sure found themselves in a desperate spot as well.
Head coach Brian Schottenheimer’s team was back on the field for the first time since that loss in Brazil, one that fell in the lap of coaching at large, the offense squandering a great opportunity to take a late lead, and defense giving up one too many
gash plays. Through 30 minutes in Houston, it looked like the Cowboys hadn’t learned any lessons in any of these areas, and trailed 16-6 to a Texans team that was never going to flinch at being 0-3, having been in this spot a year ago.
There were also few indicators from the first half that the Cowboys would fight back into a very similar position from the Ravens game, the ball in Dak Prescott and the offense’s hands in the red zone with a chance to take the lead at the end. The Cowboys did play themselves into this spot though, and this time got the go-ahead touchdown on CeeDee Lamb’s 17th catch of the game, plus the stop to follow to win 34-30.
Let’s get to our notes on how it happened, with the Cowboys now facing a short week to prepare for another winless team – the now 0-4 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Corner Up, Corner Down
The Cowboys were very depleted in the secondary coming into this game, and to make matters worse for them the Texans welcomed their star wide receiver Nico Collins back to the lineup to face this banged up pass defense. This mismatch showed itself very early, in fact as early as possible with Collins making a 45-yard catch on the first play from scrimmage.
Houston caught Reddy Steward lined up against Collins for this big play, and then hit Collins again in the red zone against DaRon Bland to cap off the drive with seven points. Bland did not have his best game, but part of the reason why is actually encouraging in an overall sense for Christian Parker’s defense.
The higher volume of throws that Bland faced was partly a result of the newly traded for Joey Porter Jr. inserting himself into the lineup and having a great debut. There were questions about how Porter would fit this scheme, but he came in and played well immediately. This shifts some of those scheme fit concerns to the veteran Bland, who has battled through injury to be part of multiple scheme changes defensively in Dallas.
There have been multiple big plays allowed by Bland this season where he appeared not on the same page with the rest of the coverage, or playing the wrong leverage. This happened on Collins’ touchdown, where Bland and rookie Caleb Downs were out of sync.
The Cowboys defense is still searching for it’s first interception of the season, and teams being forced to throw near Bland more can bring takeaways in bunches, but right now his inconsistencies on a down-to-down basis paired with an inconsistent pass rush are worrisome for how well this defense can hold up for long stretches.
Defending Long Fields
Speaking of the defense holding up, the Cowboys defense was handed multiple gifts early in this game via Texans special teams penalties that backed them up and gave them long fields. If there was any doubt about it before this game, there should be zero now that this Cowboys team is again built to play through their offense. The defense supporting this by flipping some of these long fields into short fields for Dak Prescott would be a very welcome sight, but also for the second week in a row they had trouble doing so.
The Texans got points on their first two drives of the game that started at their own 15- and 8-yard lines, as well as the fourth quarter touchdown to put them up 30-27, starting at their 13. The splash negative plays from this defense are coming in later downs or short-yardage situations, which is still a very good thing, but opposing offenses are leaning on this defense with their run games in early downs and getting them off-balance in manageable down and distances.
The drive that started at the eight-yard line for Houston and ended in a field goal had a field-flipping play against Bland, when Jaylin Noel beat him on an out and up route for 52 yards. The Cowboys had Von Miller and Malachi Lawrence on the field for this play as their edge rushers, and neither got remotely close to Stroud, allowing the double move deep route to develop.
Not Picking up the Defense
The counterpoint to this is that the Cowboys offense continued on a concerning trend carrying over from the Ravens game as well. In that loss, the defense forced three separate three and outs. The offense got the ball back in these spots and kicked a field goal in the red zone, missed a field goal, and went three and out themselves.
In Houston, the Dallas defense got back-to-back three and outs in the second quarter, and the offense punted after the first one and missed a field goal after the second on Will Anderson’s block. The Cowboys would miss another long range field goal on their next drive following this sequence too, and to the defense’s credit they bowed up and held Houston to six points out of the two drives where the Texans had their best starting field position of the game.
The Cowboys punt would come even after they escaped a 3rd-and-22 and intentional grounding penalty thanks to a Texans penalty. Schottenheimer getting too cute with the play calls again would pop up at an inopportune time, losing five yards on first down to a CeeDee Lamb reverse, then asking Jake Ferguson to block Will Anderson on second down – another incomplete pass to Lamb.
Ferguson’s blocking at the point of attack has been a major red flag within the heavier personnel sets the Cowboys have still been at their best offensively in. Ferguson needs to be included in the downfield passing concepts, but defenses should continue to force him to block out of these looks after seeing the Texans tape.
Late in the fourth quarter, the Cowboys offense had the ball back with a four point lead and chance to really seize control of the game by at least chewing some more clock. They possessed it for only 1:45 on a three and out of their own, after Ferguson had a terrible chip block against Anderson on third down. All his block did was give Anderson more of a direct rush past Terence Steele and into Prescott’s lap, deflecting Dak’s pass incomplete.
Red Zone Excellence
The Cowboys immediately cut into the Texans lead coming out of the locker room with a four-play touchdown drive, and the play sequencing was a thing of beauty – starting with a nice return by KaVontae Turpin as well. A play-action pass to Lamb got them into the red zone, and Javonte Williams finished it off with his first of three touchdowns.
We already mentioned Steele’s inconsistency at right tackle, and on the left side Tyler Guyton had a plus game, but it was the Cowboys interior offensive line that struggled most often in this game. Instead of bashing their head against the wall in the red area where things are condensed, the Cowboys pulled guard T.J. Bass and center Cooper Beebe to take the Texans interior defenders out of the play by design. These two linemen paved the way on a toss for Williams to score.
Dallas would need more of these scores from Williams after the Texans got a big kick return of their own and answered back with another Nico Collins touchdown, and his second touchdown took the Cowboys off the hook a little bit for not-as-great sequencing in the red zone this time.
George Pickens had the 54-yard catch to get the Cowboys down there, but it took drawing a 4th-and-goal pass interference penalty to save the drive. The Cowboys didn’t exactly reach into their bag of tricks to stall this drive, but they are still enamored with the low-percentage fade route that did not hit again.
Simply getting their receivers going forward and letting Lamb, Pickens, and Prescott’s accuracy be better than the defense is what this unit does best and needs to embrace more. They would see this on the drive capped by Williams’ hat trick touchdown, when Ryan Flournoy had a big third down conversion coming out of a stacked release with Lamb to get free.
Lamb would put his superhero cape on and convert a 2nd-and-18 after a Bass holding penalty and Guyton false start, but the star receiver did enough to set up Williams for the score that put Dallas ahead 27-23.
Cowboys fans have been begging for this team to show they have some different qualities to them, in order to not only be in the playoff hunt but be in contention if they do get there. Turning around a first half where the Texans secondary was shutting down the entire pass game to have the seasoned vet Lamb catch 17 balls for 189 yards, and the winning score in clutch time from Prescott, certainly feels just a little different when it comes to landmark performances by the most experienced players on offense against quality defenses.
Third-Down Pressures
The Cowboys defense manufacturing pressure is still a work in progress, but Christian Parker is starting to get a feel for how to do so in big spots and it’s suiting this team – one that feels they can score no matter how much time is left on the clock – very well.
Going back to Williams’ second touchdown, the Texans took the ball back and punted in four plays. Dee Winters had a key third-down pressure against Stroud. This opened the door for the Cowboys to take their first lead of the game, but the theme of third-down pressures being a deciding factor in the final outcome wasn’t done yet.
With the Cowboys up 27-23 and Texans back on offense, Quinnen Williams made quick work of rookie left guard Keylan Rutledge for a sack to bring up a punt. This is the exact type of matchup Williams should be expected to dominate to make a winning-type play, and he did.
The Texans would find a way to reclaim the lead though, but when it was their turn to try and stop Prescott one more time, Dak had the answers for DeMeco Ryans’ pressures. Prescott threw right into the vacated spots the Texans brought pressure from multiple times on the winning drive.
It was a roundabout way for the Cowboys to win the all-important quarterback differential they ask Prescott to win on a weekly basis to have a shot, in a game that wasn’t pretty for long stretches, but the offense came up clutch to reach 2-2 on the season. Pushing the ball in the red zone with Lamb to win the game on the offense’s terms will feel good for everyone involved after last week, and the Cowboys won’t have to wait long at all to try and keep this momentum going with their first Thursday Night Football contest of the year upcoming.
