Dallas Cowboys football is back! The long-awaited return has come and gone with Week 1 of the 2020 NFL season all but in the books. The Cowboys hit the road to open up their season against the Los Angeles Rams and played pretty well under new Head Coach Mike McCarthy.
Everything of course wasn’t sunshine and rainbows for the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night football. They no doubt had their ups and downs, which was pretty much expected considering the unprecedented offseason due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With that in mind, I thought I’d share with you what I believe to be The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from this Week 1 matchup.
Let’s take a look…
The Good
There are so many players I want to single out as the good for the Dallas Cowboys Sunday night against the Los Angeles Rams, but in the end I decided to go with Ezekiel Elliott. Whether it was in the running or passing game, Zeke looked like someone playing with a chip on his shoulder. He was a thorn in the Rams side throughout the game.
I thought Zeke’s performance was somewhat surprising, which is probably why I decided to go with him for this section. It typically takes him a few games before he looks like he did Sunday night, but I don’t think anyone around Cowboys Nation mines him getting off to a quicker than normal start. This is a sign of things to come, he could end up having his best season yet in 2020.
The Bad
The bad Sunday night for the Dallas Cowboys was pretty obvious to me. Without a doubt it was the injuries to Leighton Vander Esch, Cameron Erving, and Blake Jarwin. All three exited the game before halftime and none of them returned. As of yet, there’s no telling the severity of their injuries, but losing them for any length of time could prove disastrous.
The Cowboys were already pretty thin at linebacker and offensive tackle with Sean Lee and La’el Collins on IR, so sadly LVE and Erving’s injuries further deplete the depth at both positions. The same can probably be said about the tight end position as well. Jarwin’s injury means Dalton Schultz and Blake Bell are really going to have to elevate their games.
The Ugly
There was quite a bit of sloppy play from the Dallas Cowboys Sunday night, which isn’t that surprising considering there was no preseason games and even less practice time than usual. The worst of it was probably from the defensive side of the ball though. For me, that was the ugly from the Cowboys in the season opener against the Los Angeles Rams.
The Rams offense pretty much ate the Cowboys defense alive with misdirection plays and screen passes early and often last night. The tackling wasn’t as good as I was hoping either. Hopefully all of that can be contributed to the unprecedented offseason, but there’s no doubt the Cowboys need to improve in a big way on the defensive side of the ball from here on out.
