A fair warning to the pessimists out there: this column is overflowing with Kool-Aid. Proceed with caution.
It’s hard not to feel optimistic about the Cowboys right now, though. They obliterated the Commanders on Sunday, which simultaneously catapulted them into second place in the NFC East while dropping their rival – who reached the conference championship game a year ago – under .500 on the season.
Combine that with an Eagles squad that came dangerously close to losing their third straight game
this week, and hope abounds, rightfully so.
There was context to consider. The Commanders didn’t have Terry McLaurin or Deebo Samuel, and Jayden Daniels got hurt in the third quarter and never came back. Okay, well the Cowboys were already up 27-15 when Daniels was injured, and that injury came with a fumble that led to points. Dallas was also playing without CeeDee Lamb for the past three weeks, but their offense played well enough to win each of those games.
The defense – which is the reason why the Cowboys didn’t win all of those games that Lamb missed – was also missing starters. Trevon Diggs’ mysterious concussion ruled him out earlier in the week, and Juanyeh Thomas – who was already a backup to injured Malik Hooker – was a last-minute inactive due to a migraine. All in all, the Cowboys have six defenders currently on the injured reserve, namely DeMarvion Overshown, and there’s also the hole that Micah Parsons left when he was traded a week before the season started.
In short, writing off this game as a fluke is nonsense. The defense had been garbage for weeks regardless of who they played, but they shut down Jayden Daniels and swarmed the run game all day long. The same defense that gave up 40 points to Russell Wilson, who lost his starting job a week later, forced two takeaways against an offense that was supposed to be one of the league’s best this year.
Much was said about Matt Eberflus and his defense last week, as well as Brian Schottenheimer’s public vote of confidence in his coordinator. It’s only one week, but both seem to have justified themselves a bit. Eberflus, to his credit, changed things up in a big way schematically.
Eberflus blitzed on 47.8% of dropbacks against the Commanders and used press coverage on 76.2% of plays, both representing massive upticks in using those concepts. The result: Dallas recorded a 35% pressure rate and yielded a -0.63 EPA per dropback, third-best in Week 7. The run defense also gave up just 3.3 yards a carry when factoring out quarterback scrambles; only six teams gave up fewer this week.
In many ways, the defense was phenomenal this week. Yes, it came without two game-changing receivers, and they also had their highest efficiency play – DaRon Bland’s pick-six – against backup Marcus Mariota. But this game wasn’t about the Cowboys reclaiming their defensive dominance of the Dan Quinn era, but rather showing they can be just decent.
That’s all Dallas needs, because Schottenheimer’s offense is absolutely tearing up defenses week in and week out. Washington was healthy in their secondary, but it didn’t matter. Dak Prescott had seven targets for each of their top two corners, Mike Sainristil and Marshon Lattimore, and he posted a 108.2 passer rating with 110 passing yards when targeting them.
Lamb’s return was clearly very welcome, and Schottenheimer made sure to scheme up touches for the All Pro early on, but he didn’t go away from feeding George Pickens or Jake Ferguson either. All the success through the air helped open things up for Javonte Williams, who once again crossed the 100-yard mark. Even after all that, Schottenheimer was candid about his shortcomings as a play-caller in this game:
As a reminder, Schottenheimer is only seven games into calling this offense after not being a full-time play-caller since the 2020 season. In many ways, he’s just getting warmed up. The offense is also just getting back to full health, as Lamb was joined by KaVontae Turpin and Tyler Booker this past week. Jonathan Mingo will also be activated from the injured reserve this week, while Cooper Beebe just had his 21-day practice window started.
In other words, this offense – which has paced the league in a handful of important categories – is just now rounding into form. Pair that with a defense that can get a stop or two here and there and it’s easy to see how this team could make a run. Of course, that’s heavily dependent on the defense remaining competent going forward instead of lapsing back into their old ways.
However, there’s reason to hope. And when you see the way players react to Schottenheimer in the post-game speeches, and the way they cheer for Eberflus, it becomes really hard to suggest these players aren’t buying into the new staff.
The scheme is only half the battle, after all. The Cowboys seem to have figured that out on both sides of the ball, finally. Mix that in with a locker room that’s fully aligned and willing to run through a brick wall for each other and their coaches… well, you might just have something special.
