How the Dallas Cowboys take the NFC East by Thanksgiving

The Dallas Cowboys are now 4-5 and somehow legitimately back in the hunt for the division, here’s how they move into first by Thanksgiving.

With Sunday night’s win over the defending NFC East champs, the Dallas Cowboys move into second place and stand two games behind Washington. Two games may sound like a lot, but when looking at the upcoming schedule for the NFC East, Dallas could potentially move into first in just 10 short days (Yes, Thanksgiving is only 10 days away).

Up next for Dallas is a match-up against the Atlanta Falcons. Now, if the Cowboys have taught us anything this season, it’s that we can’t take any opponent for granted. But I think we can say, fresh off a loss to the Browns, the 4-5 Falcons are a fairly beatable squad this season.

Next up for division-leading Washington is the red-hot Houston Texans. The hottest team in the NFL is on a six-game winning streak and enter the week as the favorites over Washington. It’s certainly reasonable to think Washington loses (and goes to 6-4) and Dallas wins (moving to 5-5) next week.

Bringing us all to our NFC East showdown on Thanksgiving Day. The Dallas Cowboys have an enormous homefield advantage at home on Thanksgiving – both from a crowd noise perspective as well as a travel perspective. If both teams enter the week one game apart, Dallas will likely be seen as the favorites.

It’s reasonable to think, by Thanksgiving evening, the Dallas Cowboys could be tied atop the NFC East with five games left to play. That’s not a bad position to be in considering where we were at just a day ago.

So with that, let your optimism be renewed. Now here are some preliminary game notes from my review of Sunday night’s game. More to come once the All-22 comes out:

WR Screens

We’ve spoken for roughly 10 months about how the Dallas Cowboys need more WR screens and less RB screens. Zeke can be used more as a receiver on routes while receivers can be used more on bubble screens when there’s off coverage. We saw WR screens find success on Sunday. The result is DBs can no longer afford to just hang back and WRs get the opportunity to face more press coverage.

Pass-rush

After showing Philly some early pressure, the Dallas Cowboys seemed to completely abandon the pass-rush. They ran less games/stunts and only issued a couple ineffective and uninspired blitzes through most of the second half. The front four didn’t just look neutralized, but they looked content sitting back and preventing the scramble. With infinity time in the pocket, it’s no wonder Wentz dramatically improved in the second half.

Dallas didn’t need to all-out blitz every down, but they did need to keep up the pressure one way or the other. At the very least, vary the amount of pressure and keep Wentz guessing. Dallas didn’t dial up the pressure again until Philly moved inside Dallas territory with roughly two minutes left on the clock.

Play-Calling

The difference between good play-calling and bad play-calling often comes down to if it works or not. But for a Dallas team that often struggles to convert 3rd-and-long situations more than most teams, play-calling is about avoiding negative plays. Ever since finding success in 2016 with naked waggle/rollouts, opponents have keying in.

Yet, for some reason, Dallas keeps calling these plays getting burned more often than not. On Sunday Night, Dallas finally won the toss and deferred to return the kick to start the second half. Setting the tone in the second half is critical for this team and they have rarely been given the opportunity.

They had the opportunity on Sunday and they squandered it. Calling a naked rollout and getting sacked for a 9-yard loss on 1st down. Even if Michael Bennett hadn’t sniffed it out, the routes didn’t fool the secondary and everyone was covered perfectly.

FYI: The very next play was a read-option against a single high look with man press on Michael Gallup. Dak kept the ball and took a 3-yard gain. Why it wasn’t a ball to Gallup is hard to understand. This hole inevitably led to a never-successful screen to Zeke on 3rd-and-long, and a punt. 3-and-out.

Next. Debating whether Kris Richard should be the next HC. dark

Final Observation:

Xavier Su’a-Filo sure looked good at face value. I’ll have to see the coaches film to confirm, but his mauler type play looked an awful lot like Ronald Leary. With his strong performance, and La’el Collins’ struggles at RT, I think Connor Williams may have a better future at tackle (which I also thought going into the draft).

Published on 11/12/2018 at 13:01 PM
Last updated at 11/12/2018 at 12:10 PM

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