The Dallas Cowboys’ offense scored 37 points on Sunday, the magic number it seems the unit needs to hit this year to ensure victory.
The offense scored 40 in the win over the Giants, 38 in the tie with Green Bay, and 37 against the Jets. In the three losses, the offense has been held to 20 (Philadelphia), 14 (Chicago), and 27 (Carolina).
But what makes Sunday’s win more noteworthy was that this week, for the first time, the Cowboys’ defense showed up and made an impact on the game.
The much-maligned unit sacked Jayden Daniels twice, the second one ending his day early in the third quarter.
They added two more sacks of Marcus Mariota. The second sack of Daniels also forced a fumble, which the defense recovered.
For the coup de grâce, DaRon Bland picked off a Mariota pass 68 yards for a touchdown that sealed the game with Dallas up 41-15 with 17 minutes remaining.
Food For Thought
The defense still gave up a lot of rushing yards, 136 to be exact. But this is the type of performance they haven’t had all year.
This is the type of performance they need to repeat, more often than not, going forward.
Especially next week when they travel to Denver to play the Broncos. A team that just hung 33 points on the board against the Giants in a single quarter.
So what prompted this game from the defense?
Did Matt Eberflus finally see the light? Did the players finally get the memo?
Did the absence of Trevon Diggs, to a concussion suffered at home, change the chemistry of the defensive backfield enough to spark this performance?
Or was this the exception, rather than the rule going forward?
We’ll find out soon enough. But for one Sunday afternoon at least, things were looking a lot brighter inside of AT&T Stadium.
And it wasn’t because Jerry Jones left the curtains open.
By The Numbers
Dallas is now 80-49-2 all-time against Washington and are 44-18-2 when playing the Commanders at home.
When it comes to Week 7 contests, the Cowboys are now 33-28 overall.
They lost one Week 7 game to the 1982 strike and have had four bye weeks fall on Week 7 over the years.
Dallas is a very solid 22-5 when playing at home in the seventh week of the year. But they are only 2-5 when the Week 7 opponent is Washington.
Dallas’ lone victory prior to Sunday’s win in a Week 7 showdown came at home in 1999, a 38-20 win fueled by two Troy Aikman touchdown passes, an Aikman rushing touchdown, and a 70-yard punt return for a touchdown by Deion Sanders.
Scoragami #425
Sunday’s final score of 44-22 was the first time in franchise history that one of it’s 1,072 regular season and playoff games ended in that score.
It is the fourth time in seven games this season that the Cowboys have established a new Scoragami total. Aside from the Week 4, 40-40 tie against the Packers, the other three were Cowboys’ victories.
In Week 2, the Cowboys edged the Giants 40-37 for a new Scoragami, and in Week 5 they beat the Jets in New York, 37-33.
This should be the way the defense plays from now on!! Eberflus said he was changing things this past week to try to make the defense better, and it worked!! So if he don’t stay with it then he deserves to be fired!! It’s obvious this defense is better when the secondary is playing more man coverage, so if he don’t realize that after this game then he don’t deserve to have the job!!
Indeed.
Now, the question is:
Did the defense have a better day because of Eberflus’ changes? Or because the Commanders were missing their top 3 receivers?
We’ll have a better idea of which is correct after Sunday’s game in Denver.
Bit of both I think. We got lucky several times with the Commander’s dropping easy catches and Daniels misfiring passes. And despite the stat sheet, we really didn’t get much pressure on Daniels – he had bags of time for most of his dropbacks. The game could easily have gone a different way (especially if they had called us for what was a definite PI by Bridges in the endzone).
The changes did make a difference, but another team would still have picked us apart. Washington just didn’t take advantage.
What was more encouraging is that the Defense just didn’t roll over and played through all four quarters.
Sorry, but it’s hard to take this post positively after last week’s.
I’m no homer and I’ve been super critical of this team, coaching and front office, but we should all be consistent.
I know I’ll get flamed for this, but we can’t have inflammatory headline one week and all is well headlines the next.
IJS
So I’m not allowed to factually state things here?
The Cowboys are not a team that will make the playoffs. The Cowboys defense finally played a good game on Sunday.
Both things can be true. And that’s what I do. I call things as I see them.
Perhaps it is you and your own biases that cannot be taken seriously?
No bias this side. I truly call it like I see it.
Jerry is not the cause of every problem that this team has. And he certainly is not the cause of bad play on the field.
If Jerry truly is the GM, he has 2 jobs: hire coaches, sign talent. There is no question this is a talented team. He just ok a coaches. Say what you will but over the last decade this has been a winning team.
Micah is not the answer to a defense that cannot cover and plays way too much zone because even a better pass rush can stop the ball going to wide open receivers.
Again, IJS.
Why are you bringing up Jerry Jones here, Stephen Jones sock puppet account?
See last week’s post.
One of my weekly 7 or one of the many others by my colleagues? Be specific. Regardless, what does Jerry have to do with the specific post?