Like the majority of you, I was expecting the Dallas Cowboys to build off of their win over the New York Giants and put together a much better performance than they did against the Seattle Seahawks last Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, I should’ve remembered that the Cowboys don’t have the best track record when playing in Seattle.
If I would’ve been paying attention to the Cowboys history when playing in Seattle, I would have been much more prepared for the manhandling that took place a few days ago. Dallas just seems cursed when they play Seattle at home. It doesn’t matter if it’s a regular-season game or preseason.
I hate to say it, but maybe we should start calling it the Tony Romo curse. Maybe this all started with his botched snap that ended the Cowboys playoff run in 2007. Let’s not forget Seattle is also where Romo’s career probably ended when he hurt his back in a meaningless preseason game in 2016. As you can see, history doesn’t lie.
If I would’ve remembered this, I probably still wouldn’t be feeling a little sick to my stomach. Unfortunately it is what it is and all we can do is move on. But, that’s not going to keep me from sharing with all of you what I believed to be The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly for the Cowboys against the Seattle Seahawks in the Week 3 of the 2018 season.
The Good
After pretty much getting completely manhandled by the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday afternoon, I had a pretty difficult time to find some good to put in this section about the way the Dallas Cowboys played. I really had to take a deep breath and put my emotions to the side for a little while, but I did discover a few individuals that deserved recognition.
The first person I want to identify is Cornerback Byron Jones. He continues to play at a really high level and is finally playing up to that first-round pedigree. It was also really good to see Running Back Ezekiel Elliott finally find some running room and look like his old self, although he probably could’ve done without the fumble. Lastly, how good is rookie Linebacker Leighton Vander Esch playing? He finished with 11 total tackles against the Seahawks.
I know it doesn’t provide much comfort in the way these individuals performed since the Cowboys couldn’t come away with the victory, but at least it wasn’t all bad. All we can do is hope they can clean things up and take this as a learning experience.
The Bad
There was no shortage of bad for the Dallas Cowboys Sunday afternoon against the Seattle Seahawks, but for me it had to be Quarterback Dak Prescott and the Cowboys passing game. The struggles in the passing game is completely hamstringing the offensive productivity and unfortunately I have a hard time seeing them improving much right now.
Prescott is only averaging about 160 passing yards a game and that’s just not going to cut it if this team is planning on winning many games this season. He has thrown just as many touchdowns (2) as he has interceptions (2) this year. To make matters worse, it looks as if there’s a void of playmaking ability from his pass catchers.
Honestly, I don’t really know where the blame should fall right now. Is it Prescott’s fault or does it fall at the feet of his receivers? Unfortunately, it doesn’t really matter because nothings working for either of them right now anyway.
The Ugly
I was going to go with the stupid “mental” penalties the Dallas Cowboys had against the Seahawks yesterday for the ugly, but instead decided to go with the blown coverages in the secondary.
The Cowboys secondary has been playing really well so far this season, but unfortunately they blew a few assignments yesterday against the Seahawks which resulted in touchdowns. I really thought they would be better prepared considering Kris Richard has spent nearly his entire coaching career in Seattle before joining the Cowboys, but maybe I was expecting too much.
I really thought the Cowboys secondary would shut down the Seahawks passing game, especially after what they were able to do in Week 2 against the New York Giants. The Giants have much better weapons in the passing game, but somebody forgot to tell Seattle’s receivers. I still have high hopes that this was just a fluke, but I think I may temper my expectations a little moving forward.
