Thank you to David Halprin of Blogging the Boys, our sister site covering the Dallas Cowboys, for taking the time to answer a few questions this week, leading up to the team’s Sunday Night Football matchup against the Green Bay Packers. If you want to see our exchange with Halprin, where he asked us questions about the Packers, that should be up later today on BtB.
- Tell me a little bit about the Dallas Cowboys’ pass defense. I’ve seen the numbers on how the non-Sam Williams edge defenders have struggled to get after the quarterback and how the secondary has really struggled so far. What’s the temperature on the Eberflus defense?
The Cowboys defense is terrible. I mean really, really bad. Matt Eberflus came in this offseason and moved the scheme to zone-heavy coverage
dependent on four rushers up front and not a lot of blitzing, and the Cowboys are faltering at almost every level. There have been so many coverage busts where corners either don’t carry their receiver deep enough in the zone, or the safety fails to recognize the danger and doesn’t move to cover guys deep. I’ve watched a lot of football over a lot of years, but I’ve never seen so many open receivers deep in a secondary as I have in the Cowboys past two games. Busted coverages/poor secondary play has been problem number one, but the Cowboys have had trouble pressuring/sacking the quarterback. Dallas is not getting sacks, and they are rarely moving quarterbacks off their spot. When they do, they’ve been gouged by QB runs. Basically the whole thing is a mess and it looks like a misfit between scheme and personnel.
- It seems like the Cowboys are a bit of a glass cannon. It feels like they’re hoping to win shootouts this year, which is going to be hard against this defense. What does the offense look like without CeeDee Lamb and the two starting offensive linemen who are going to be out?
That’s the big question – how they respond without Lamb and the two offensive linemen. The Cowboys offense had looked really good through most of the young season, but they slowed down tremendously in the Bears game without Lamb. And Tyler Booker and Cooper Beebe are key parts of the run game which is an area the Cowboys have performed very well in. Luckily they do have George Pickens who has started to show a little more recently and has the talent to be a WR1. They will also rely on tight end Jake Ferguson a lot for short passes over the middle. The offense hopes to be a balance of run and pass, and the run game behind RB Javonte Willaims has been very good. But it’s hard to see them being as productive this week simply because Lamb is a unique weapon that will be missed.
- How has Kenny Clark played for you guys?
He has been a very solid contributor on defense. The Cowboys run defense over the last few years has been atrocious, but with Clark in the middle the Cowboys are doing a much better job clamping down on that. Of course, when teams can just easily turn to the pass with very little resistance, it doesn’t matter as much. Still, Clark has played well. In fact, you could argue that he has been the top guy on defense for the team.
- What’s the feeling around the team and Micah Parsons’ return to Dallas? Obviously, SNF is going to play into that angle.
Dread. Sadness, Anger. At least for a lot of Cowboys fans. The idea that Jerry Jones actually traded Parsons is still unfathomable to me. Around the team they are saying the old ‘you just got to play the game’ routine etc., but with the Cowboys offensive tackles struggling this year in pass blocking, and having two starting linemen in the interior out, there has to be a feeling that Parsons could potentially wreck the offense. When watching our defense, I sometimes think ‘if only there was a way that Dallas could have an edge rusher who could make plays no matter what.’ Then I silently curse out Jerry Jones. I don’t think anybody from the Dallas side thinks it’s going to be a good thing to see Micach Parsons in a Packers’ uniform. There will probably be a sense of relief once it is over.
- If the Cowboys win this game, what do you think it looks like?
For that to happen, I think it will be because of mistakes from the Packers. Things like turnovers, penalties, blown assignments or even special teams. The Cowboys would need a few turnovers, and they may need something special from Kavonte Turpin on punt/kick returns. Brandon Aubrey is a machine kicking field goals, so that could help. But it really feels like for the Cowboys to win, the Packers will have to help them. Perhaps Jordan Love is just off on his accuracy, or the defense is unable to stop the Cowboys running game. Things like that all put together, but I certainly wouldn’t bet on it.
