For the first time this season, Dallas Cowboys fans strolled confidently into work on a victory Tuesday.
The Cowboys football team rolled into Los Angeles on Monday Night Football, and stole the lightning bolt like Percy Jackson did back in 2010.
Dallas improved their record to 4-2 on the season, and are now on their bye week before coming back the following week to take on the other Los Angeles team, the Rams.
The game didn’t start in ideal fashion, with the Cowboys going three & out, and the Chargers driving 42 yards for a touchdown with little resistance.
It felt like one of those games, and the frustration carried over from the San Francisco game.
Luckily, the defense tightened up, and held the Chargers to 10 points for the entire rest of the game.
Last week’s version of this article was titled “The bad, the bad, and the ugly” because there were no silver linings to speak of.
This week is different, so let’s dive in to some good, some bad, and some ugly from the 20-17 victory at SoFi Stadium.
The Good
Here are some things that went well for the Cowboys this past Monday night.
Dak Prescott
Let’s start with the quarterback.
Dak Prescott had arguably his best game of the season when the Cowboys needed him the most.
The eighth year signal caller finished with season highs in passing yards (272), yards per attempt (9.1), yards per completion (13.0), rushing attempts (7), and rushing yards (40).
Throw in a 70% completion percentage and zero turnovers, and Prescott had himself a game.
Dak continually evaded pass rushers, and picked perfect moments to scramble for first downs to keep the chains moving for the offense.
For the first time in 15 games, Prescott had a passing touchdown and a rushing touchdown in the same game.
If he keeps this up, the offense will be in fine shape moving forward.
Rush Defense
An Achilles heel in the losses versus the Cardinals and 49ers, the rush defense is a completely different animal in the Cowboys’ four wins.
It’s almost like being able to stop the run allows other areas of the defense to shine. Who would’ve thought?
The Chargers, boosted by the return of RB Austin Ekeler, did not have the success they hoped to have against the Dallas front seven.
Led by veteran DE DeMarcus Lawrence, the Cowboys held the Chargers to just 53 yards on 23 carries, a 2.3 yard per carry average.
The longest rush allowed was nine yards, and that was a scramble by Justin Herbert.
The performance was especially impressive considering top LB Leighton Vander Esch did not suit up with a neck injury.
That injury will sideline him for weeks, and if the Chargers game was any indication of how the rush defense will respond with him out of the lineup, the team will be ok.
The Bad
Here are some aspects of the game that are not up to standards, but maybe no reason to panic either.
Pass Protection
The Chargers field a pair of edge rushers who no offensive tackle in the league would be excited to line up against.
Joey Bosa and Khalil Mack have not performed to the standards that the team expected when they signed Mack, but they are still effective.
Bosa was coming off of injury, and appeared to be slowed by that.
His teammate was coming off of a game where he registered six sacks, and the NFL world was thinking Mack was back to his prime.
He didn’t hit six sacks, but he did contribute one sack to the five sack total.
Prescott is facing a disturbing pattern of being sacked more each week.
After not allowing a sack at all versus the Giants in Week 1, the sack totals after that are one, two, three, three, and finally five this past Monday.
One of the perks of the Texas Coast offense is that the ball comes out quickly, so it’s alarming how many sacks Prescott is taking.
It appears teams are getting to Prescott by completing stunts up front that the offensive line is having trouble blocking.
Hopefully there are some tweaks made during the bye week.
The Ugly
This section is reserved for the worst aspect of the game, and something we hope to not see anymore.
Penalties
Wasn’t this supposed to get fixed this offseason?
For two years running now, penalties have greatly affected the Cowboys in big games.
Dating back to the 2021 Wildcard loss versus the 49ers where the Cowboys had 14 penalties, we have been waiting for the discipline to kick in.
The Chargers accepted 11 penalties on Monday night, and that’s not counting the three or four flags that were picked up after Los Angeles decided to decline.
No team is perfect, and there are some penalties that are easy for the referees to call in the heat of a play, but the mental mistakes are concerning.
Of the 11 penalties, five of them were of the pre-snap variety.
One 12 men on the field, one illegal shift, one illegal formation, and two offsides penalties.
Los Angeles was given four 1st downs by penalty, which made up nearly 25% of their total for the game.
Hopefully a reset on the bye week will show us a more disciplined team on the other end.