Brett's Cowboys Corner

Winning at home is hard…wait that can’t be right.

The Cowboys lost Sunday 47-9, lost isn’t the right word. Embarrassed is more along the lines. For the 3rd time this year, it has felt like the game was over well before halftime came around. The 38-point loss was the worst loss at AT&T Stadium, this was also the worst loss for the team under the ownership of Jerry Jones.

This team has major foundational issues that are becoming more clear, they are not a physical football team. Constantly getting blown off the line of scrimmage, the secondary is getting dotted up and there is no toughness.

The offense has shown the ability to be creative in previous games, but against better opponents, they tend to get away from it. One thing that becomes noticeable is when the Cowboys have creative plays, everything needs to be perfectly executed or it turns really bad. More often than not, it seems that the quarterback has had trouble getting the ball accurately and timely to the spot…we will get more into him later.

My current take to create some type of explanation for what is happening. I think this team has the same structural problems as they did last year. Wait, but they were 12-5 last year? Yes, because last year I think Dak Prescott played at a much higher level, as he was in the MVP race. There were times when he would pick up the slack to get a win…also go take a look at those 12 wins, Seattle was a good win…maybe 1 or 2 other strong wins.

Detroit Was Out For Revenge.

Dan Campbell came into this game all smiles, but it was clear they were here for revenge. The Lions were not happy with the outcome of their game here in AT&T last season, and believed they were robbed by the officials.

They made it evident that they were sending a message, as the first play the referee announces that Dan Skipper was reporting eligible for the opening run play.

Over the course of 60 minutes the Lions dominated the Cowboys defense is all phases and let the offense kill itself. Going into the 4th quarter, the Lion had 55 offensive plays and 38 of those were in Dallas territory. The Lions ran all over Dallas, but heard the news that they didn’t want to pass. Well against a Dallas secondary that has given up big plays, all of sudden they wanted to pass.

Jared Goff had a great game, even against the pressure which he usually doesn’t perform well against.

His 178 passing yards under pressure are also the most in a single game by any quarterback this season. Goff was at his best targeting vertical routes, completing 4 of 8 for 149 yards and 2 touchdowns after gaining only 207 yards and a touchdown when targeting vertical routes during the team’s first 4 games this season.

After the Lions got themselves a comfortable lead, they didn’t stop. They went into their trick plays to try and embarrass Dallas. Passing the ball to offensive linemen in the endzone, running a hook and ladder to Penei Sewell. Even lining up all 300 pounds of Taylor Lewan at wide receiver. There goal was to embarrass Dallas and they did just that.

Dallas Defense is Injured

Now this is not an excuse, but unfortunately is already being used as a fall back for the front office when analyzing the team.

It is a true problem though, Dallas is dealing with a lot of injuries and missing your star defensive ends, your leading tackler and a star cornerback is a recipe for disaster.

As for the guys you had, they were killed on the run game. Missing 10 tackles on David Montgomery, who dominated with only 12 carries. When you can’t stop the run, that means you can’t stop the pass because you have to over compensate on run defense allowing your pass defense to get softer.

How much would having those players back truly help?

I think they would have helped get some stops and probably would not have allowed 47 points. But I don’t think that Parsons, DLaw, or Bland could have saved you Sunday. Mainly because the offense did not learn from last week, and were not ready to play.

Same Offensive Mistakes, This Time it Kills You

The Cowboys resorted back to redzone turnovers. Deciding to run the ball at poor times. And just some poor throws.

This year the Cowboys have two endzone interceptions on the same route concept.

This interception occurred on the 2nd Dallas drive, and felt like the everything went downhill from there. This is an example of getting too repetitive, this is a corner post the Cowboys run all the time, usually to Brandin Cooks in the endzone. Brian Branch and Detroit knew it was coming the entire time. Branch baited the throw, eyeing out the route. The Cowboys get too much tunnel vision on route concepts. Ferguson on the same play was in single coverage, running an out in the endzone which had a completion percentage.

This was on the first drive, where the Cowboys get a defensive hold bail them out. It was the right call, but as Dak Prescott is hit to the ground, he sails the ball way over the head of Ferguson for an interception. Joseph picks it off on the left side of the image, 10 yards past where Ferguson would have had to leap an NFL record vertical to catch.

There was another interception that did count that was an overthrow. Throughout the game there were plenty of passes that were completed to routes going no where and receivers getting 0 separation.

As for the run game, it was non-existent unlike last week. As you were getting cooked by sweeps and also sort of trick plays, you answered it with a shotgun handoff to Zeke for a half yard.

Here’s a good example of running just to run. Zeke gets a 3 yard gained, but cuts back to his right to the arms of an unblocked Aiden Hutchinson. The Cowboys went away from Rico Dowdle, because they felt the need to throw early.

This made them one dimensional and had zero ability to move the ball downfield.

The Offensive Line Was All-Time Levels of Bad

Both areas, run and pass game were so ineffective because the Cowboys offensive line had the worst game as a unit.

The Dallas Cowboys line graded out by PFF, as the bottom half of the league as individuals last week.

Is Steele a big surprise to be so low? It shouldn’t be, many raised the red flag when looking at the matchup with Hutchinson. The rest of the Lions defensive line haven’t done anything all year, but we made them look like superstars.

The sad one to talk about is Zack Martin. Once held in the highest regard of Cowboys players, let alone oline. Martin graded out the lowest in his career overall and for pass blocking he received a 0.0, this is not like Martin but this season we have seen some errors. The errors are rapidly growing.

Overall the offensive line could not hold up and made it difficult for the offense to get any type of rhythm, but may be a poor lack of planning against Lions personnel.

The Dak Discussion

This is a difficult conversation and there is not enough space on this recap to go over everything. But based on this season and Sunday against the Lions. Dak is playing poorly.

This is a tough line because there is such a critical reception of Prescott, and you either have to be a ‘Dak Hater’ or a ‘Dak Lover’ but if we taking into account the MVP level performance he had last year in games, and that performance is based on being one of the three NFL quarterbacks to be included on the ballot. There has been a clear drop off, this is not 2023 Dak Prescott.

Dak doesn’t play run defense and he is not asked to. But there are times where he is asked to help lead drives, and it fails. Taking a look at the past two games, there have been inaccurate balls and really poor decisions leading to turnovers. Against the Steelers, he made up for it because of the last five minutes of the game. This time the Lions made him pay for his mistakes by scoring.

We discussed how Dak has eaten defenses up who play base defense and man coverage against him. But that was not the case Sunday.  One year after allowed CeeDee Lamb to gain 188 receiving yards against man coverage (the most by any receiver in a game since 2018), the Lions limited CeeDee Lamb to just 2 receptions for 46 yards on 7 targets in man coverage with an interception. Overall, Prescott recorded a 23.7% drop back success rate, his 2nd-lowest rate in a game in his career.

This level of play will not suffice if you want to pretend to play in the post-season.

The Cowboys were humiliated in their game Sunday. At this point, they are not contenders for anything, we are on pace for a 7 to 9 win team. There needs to be a massive turn around. They go into their bye week now…we will see.