I think people had more fun watching and talking about the Super Bowl 60 halftime show than the actual game, yet the Seattle Seahawks proved that to win in this league you need more than just a high-powered offense that everyone wants.
Everyone wants to talk about how Dak Prescott and the crew will never win a Super Bowl, but let’s just point out that Sam Darnold won the big game before two-time MVP Lamar Jackson and last years MVP Josh Allen.
He played well enough to take care of business. He did not light up the scoreboard, and the Seattle defense did major work against the NFC.
Nothing But Defense
So if you haven’t heard, the Dallas Cowboys are expected to place the franchise tag on George Pickens.
Signing him and possibly Javonte Williams are the only two moves they need to make on the offensive side of the ball.
They have all they need on that side. The rest of this offseason should be focused on the defense and nothing else.
We have to be honest with ourselves, though the defense has a major issue. The secondary and linebackers are maybe the worst in football, and it will be hard to perform like the Seattle defense with the personnel that they have on the squad right now.
The entire defensive staff looks different with Parker as the headline.
Chidera Uzo-Diribe from the Steelers was hired as the Cowboys’ OLB coach. They also hired Ryan Smith from Arizona as the Cornerbacks coach, Derrick Ansley was hired as the pass game coordinator from the Packers, and Marcus Dixton is the new defensive line coach from the Vikings (I love this hire).
So now that the coaching staff is pretty much in place, they have to use what the Seahawks did as a blueprint. Build that defense both through the draft and please, for the love of everything, Jerry Jones, kindly spend money on that side of the ball.
From a coverage standpoint, their most utilized coverage was Cover 3 over the two years Parker coached the Eagles (32.1% on average).
Next was Cover 1 (22.2%) and Cover 6 (21%), with Cover 4 (16.5%) rounding out the four most-utilized coverage packages that Philadelphia used. Their zone/man coverage splits sat around 70/30% respectively.
You have to get guys into the building to help with that. I honestly think that their defensive line is going to be a strength this season with Williams, Clark and others.
At the end of the day, the Seattle defense and Sam not forcing any turnovers is what won them the Super Bowl, but when have we ever seen the Dallas defense create 3 turnovers and 6 sacks on a playoff game.
Maybe over these next two years it will happen, but the Seahawks showed you that it takes more than some great quarterback play or an amazing offense to win it all.
Say what you want, he now has more Super Bowls than Lamar Jackson, who has two MVPs, Josh Allen, who has an MVP, and all these other guys that everyone loves, yet can’t win it all.
We are seeing that if your team does not catch every break like New England did with the injuries to the teams they played, or have the most balanced team in all football like Seattle, you aren’t going to win the Super Bowl on the back of one player.
The MVP this year got beat by that Seattle team, the Dallas Cowboys need to do everything possible to make sure this defense is average at best in 2026, because the NFC is only going to get better.
They have the offense, but they need this defense to be better, and don’t you forget, the running back won the Super Bowl MVP…
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Right on Shane. Cowboys of the 70’s had the Doomsday Defense, ergo Super Bowl wins. Same for the 80’s and 90’s.
a Dallas Cowboys fan, since the 70’s Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb are the Cowboys best players on offense and Dak Prescott chocks in the playoffs
Chokes by averaging 24 points a game, tough when the fake narrative that the defense has been so good for him when they give up nearly 30 a game…. Yikes.
The Cowboys have had TOP TEN defenses in HALF of DP’s 10-year tenure. Result, 2 first round wild card wins in those ten years. One was a 2-point squeaker over Seattle in 2018. The other was a win over a sub .500 Bucs team in 2023 with Brady having one foot in retirement.
AGAIN, so this year it’s the defense as the scapegoat/excuse for DP. BUT what happened the other FIVE years with a “top ten” defense?
BTW, Allen has seven playoff wins and two conference championship appearances in eight years. Some Bills fans will say they got robbed with that catch the refs turned into an “INT” that probably would have clinched a win for them. And he had to contend with three times SB champ Mahomes in the AFC during all his years.
And here we are saying Allen has been to two conference championships…. Is that the goal Vam? It is funny how he continues to get a pass, yet Sam Donald won a SB before him and two time MVP Lamar Jackson…….. & A top ten defense that allowed 27.1 points per game in the playoffs with Dak Prescott, Vam a simple search can help with that narrative that the defense has been top 10 for him when it matters.
https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/cowboys-points-per-game-allowed-average-with-dak-prescott-playoffs-defense
Hey Shane, I guess we can agree to disagree here. IMHO I believe the person who is getting a pass is Prescott. People lining up a long list of excuses that are supposed to absolve him from his now ten-year record of post season failure, is the very definition of getting a pass. This year the scapegoat is the defense. Prior years it’s been some other soup du jour excuses. Seen this year after year.
Comparing Prescott to other QBs’ “failures/shortcomings” should not absolve him from his own poor PS record. As a long time Cowboy fan I wish he can play better in the bigger games, but for whatever reason he just hasn’t. Some people may say he chokes; others, including me, may say he isn’t clutch.
It’s a known fact, Allen has been playing most of his career with much less talent around him and has produced much better results in the bigger games, i.e., post season games. Obviously, he hasn’t got to a SB yet, but he has gotten farther into them than DP within a shorter career. Prescott on the other hand has been surrounding by so called Pro Bowl players and where are results.
Bottomline, the FO has hitched their wagon to this 60-million-dollar guy, and here we are.
Correction: Prescott… “surrounded” by so called Pro Bowl players and where are the results?
BTW, Darnold also beat Prescott to a SB win.