A lot of questions are swirling around the Dallas Cowboys as they enter their bye week but one thing is clear: They are a flawed football team.
Two of their three wins have come against two of the NFL’s worst teams. All three of their losses have been delivered to AT&T Stadium and included big first-half deficits. A season that carried the “all-in” motto throughout the offseason has been more disastrous than the win-loss column indicates.
Are the Cowboys toast? Or are there solutions to the issues that plague them? Let’s dissect the biggest problems to see if they can be solved in time to rescue this season.
Pass defense
The Cowboys are giving up 213 passing yards per game, which is No. 16 in the league. That’s a bit misleading because teams don’t need to throw the ball a ton against Dallas because they either mount huge leads in the first half or take advantage of the bad run defense. The Cowboys give up 7.9 yards per pass attempt — seventh worst in the NFL. They also allow 143.2 rushing yards per game (eighth worst).
The only teams giving up more than 143 rushing yards and more than 7.9 yards per pass attempt are the Los Angeles Rams, Arizona Cardinals and Carolina Panthers. Those teams are 1-4, 2-4 and 1-5, respectively.
Fixable? Significant reinforcements are on the way. Micah Parsons’ return from injury, which could come in San Francisco after the bye week or soon thereafter, will provide a big boost in pass rush. DaRon Bland is in a similar boat, expected to return in the coming weeks. Cornerback Caelen Carson is also improving. Getting a No. 1 pass rusher, No. 2 cornerback and No. 3 outside cornerback should help the pass defense look better than it did Sunday against the Lions.
Rush defense
It was an issue when Dan Quinn was the defensive coordinator and it’s an issue with Mike Zimmer calling the shots. Opponents are able to run the ball at will against the Cowboys. Statistically, things seemed to improve for a couple of weeks against the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers. However, those teams are limited offensively.
Without Week 4 and Week 5, the Cowboys would be giving up more than 185 yards per game rushing, which would rank dead last in the NFL.
Fixable? No. This issue predates the offseason. It was exposed in Buffalo last season and again in the playoffs against the Green Bay Packers. The Cowboys mostly chose to ignore this area in free agency and the draft, counting on guys like Mazi Smith to step up their game. Smith has had one good game but has mostly been a disappointment. Stopping the run begins in the trenches, and particularly at defensive tackle, and the Cowboys are sorely lacking in that area.
Getting back DeMarcus Lawrence, who is on injured reserve for at least two more games, will help, given he’s the team’s best run-stopping defensive lineman. Eric Kendricks returning to action will be helpful, too. But both of those players (and Parsons), were on the field when the Baltimore Ravens and New Orleans Saints ran silly on the Cowboys. Their returns don’t save the situation.
If the Cowboys truly want to fix this area, they need to look outside the organization. That doesn’t mean free agents who aren’t good enough to already be on a roster. The Cowboys need to make a midseason trade, similar to what they did in 2018 with Amari Cooper when the receiver position was in a similar situation. They have $22 million-plus in cap space, so the funds are available. It’s a matter of if the front office can identify a player they would be willing to trade for and give up assets.
Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb connection
On paper, things don’t look so bad. Coming into Monday, CeeDee Lamb is fifth in the NFL in receiving yards with 467. But the connection between Lamb and quarterback Dak Prescott has been off all season. It’s resulted in missed touchdowns, missed receptions and interceptions.
Lamb has caught 58.2 percent of the 55 targets that have come his way. For perspective, that ranks 57th in the NFL. Last season, Lamb caught 74.6 percent of his passes, which was third in the league among receivers with at least 100 targets.
Fixable? Prescott and Lamb both acknowledged that their chemistry hasn’t been where it needs to be this season. This is the duo’s fifth season together and that doesn’t include all of the offseason work they put in together. Lamb missing all of training camp is coming to bite the Cowboys but it feels like a matter of time before they get on the same page and start humming.
Rushing offense
The issues running the ball feel similar to the issues on the other side stopping the run, in that the struggles were incredibly predictable going back to February and were intentionally ignored. Jerry Jones says the Cowboys couldn’t afford Derrick Henry, which is fundamentally not true. The Cowboys also chose to pass on going after Saquon Barkley. After six weeks, Henry leads the NFL in rushing in Baltimore and Barkley is No. 4 in the league.
Fixable? This is a complicated issue. The running back room doesn’t have a bona fide No. 1 running back on the roster. Ezekiel Elliott doesn’t have much left in the tank and Deuce Vaughn can’t consistently make the active roster. On Monday, head coach Mike McCarthy admitted that Rico Dowdle needs to get more rushes, especially more than the one he got in the first quarter Sunday when the game was still close against the Lions.
But that’s only half of the problem. The offensive line has struggled, especially in opening up running lanes. Even when the line has been solid, it hasn’t always been in rhythm with the runners behind it. The talk coming into the season was about growing pains breaking in two rookies but the issue is that Tyler Smith has been the only one who has been playing at a high level, week in and week out.
Trading for a running back could help the cause but fixing this area will require work from McCarthy in the scheme and the passing offense to take off to lighten the box for runners.
Red zone offense
Another year, same dialogue. It was around this time last year that the red zone offense was under fire for its ineffectiveness. At that time, there were working theories — perhaps the offense, being in McCarthy’s system for the first time, had a flaw. Maybe Tony Pollard, the lead running back for the first time, was not capable of carrying that load. The Cowboys turned things around after their bye week and became incredibly efficient in the red zone.
Through six weeks, the Cowboys are 30th in the red zone. One of the reasons is Prescott, who has three red zone turnovers in the last two weeks. But the offense is simply suffocating down there, with limited options in the passing game beyond Lamb and Jake Ferguson and nothing to turn to in the run game.
Fixable? Their history would say yes but signs from this season paint a more pessimistic picture. Brandin Cooks returning from his injury isn’t going to suddenly kick start the red zone offense. The Cowboys need another player, perhaps Luke Schoonmaker, to seize a role and tap into the talents of Jalen Tolbert even more. There’s no external option for this so any fix has to come from inside the building.
The details
Coaches and players have used the word “details” a lot this season. Jourdan Lewis held a media availability a few weeks ago in which seemingly every answer came back to being better in the details. McCarthy harped on that again Monday.
It’s a troubling trend that looked ugly Sunday. With Parsons, Lawrence and Kendricks out, Trevon Diggs qualifies as one of the best players on the defense. Never mind his struggles against the pass but the effort he gave in tackling runners was horrendous. The run defense has been bad, not only because of physical mismatches but because players aren’t filling gaps and going to the right places. On offense, players are extending beyond their capacity and doing too much.
Fixable? This should be fixable — they’re all NFL players. They know what the fundamentals are and what they need to do. If they forgot, their own film from the first six weeks is a stark reminder. If this isn’t something that gets corrected, there are a lot of individuals who will be under fire — coaches and players.
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(Top photo: Kevin Jairaj / Imagn Images)
