The Dallas Cowboys finally won a preseason opener for the first time since 2017 by defeating the Seattle Seahawks 17-7.
It had been awhile, but let’s not put too much stock into a preseason win. What I care about is what Dallas looked like getting there.
Before the preseason started, I had the Cowboys at 10-7 for the regular season. Seattle wasn’t enough to move me off that prediction, but there were a couple of things I wanted to see again.
The Defense Will Make or Break the Team
The Dak Prescott-led Cowboys offense scored 471 points last season, but the defense gave up 511. That’s a problem almost everyone knew about.
So when I watched the Seattle game, I wasn’t really worried about the final score as much as I wanted to see if the defense looked any different. For most of the night, I thought it did.
Seattle scored on its opening possession and didn’t score again. The Seahawks finished the night with only 156 total yards and 76 through the air. To put that into context, let’s look at last season’s passing yards against our defense.
The Cowboys allowed 251.5 passing yards a game, making them dead last in the NFL. So, when I watched the Seattle game I wanted to see how the secondary looked and they showed up.
I won’t pretend shutting down backups in August means this defense is fixed, but after what we watched last season, that game was a breath of fresh air.
The other thing is penalties. Dallas was flagged 13 times for 103 yards against Seattle. That’s the kind of stuff that follows a team into September and a hard habit to break for the Cowboys, as we have seen that issue year after year.
The one preseason game doesn’t tell us much, but now let’s add in the Arizona game.
Arizona Got Some Yards
Dallas followed up the Seattle win by handling Arizona 34-13. More importantly, some of the things I wanted to see showed up.
Shavon Revel picked off Gardner Minshew on Arizona’s opening drive, and the Cardinals didn’t find the end zone until the third quarter.
With a little over two minutes remaining, Arizona had 273 total yards, was just 4-10 on third down and 1-of-3 in the red zone. Gardner Minshew would finish his night with 177 passing yards.
Again, I understand who’s playing in these games, and I’m not trying to convince anyone Dallas suddenly has an elite defense because a bunch of backups held Arizona to 13 points. But we were looking for something to show up twice and the defense did.
Then there were the penalties.
Dallas had 13 for 103 yards against Seattle. Against Arizona, that number dropped to 4 penalties for 20 yards. I like that progress.
The run defense held up again, allowing 135 yards, but a couple of big runs were in garbage time up the yardage total.
These guys might not decide how many games Dallas wins this season, but good depth doesn’t hurt.
I’m Changing My Prediction
I started at the Cowboys, finishing the regular season at 10-7.
After the Seattle game, I stayed there because one preseason game wasn’t enough to change it up. After Arizona, I’m going to move it to 11-6.
This isn’t because Dallas is 2-0 in the preseason. I like this record because the biggest question coming out of last season was the defense, and through two games it looks better.
The secondary hasn’t been getting shredded, Dallas has made teams work for points, and the penalties that bothered me against Seattle didn’t show up in Arizona. Does any of this guarantee it will carry over to September?
No.
We still haven’t seen Christian Parker’s defense with the first string guys and a real game plan yet, but I wanted to see this defense twice before I bought into it and now I think I have.
Current prediction: Cowboys finish 11-6.
There’s still one preseason game left to change my mind.
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