Jason Garrett was understandably judicious with his assessment of Sunday’s scrimmage, the first for the Dallas Cowboys’ training camp.
Both sides had their moments, good and bad.
The first-team offense, for example, dominated a red zone period in which it scored four touchdowns in nine plays.
But does that mean the defense is in trouble? Not necessarily. The defense put together a dominating latter portion of the scrimmage, effectively shutting down the offense.
“I just thought it was an outstanding effort for those [offensive] guys. Not quite as good for the defense, obviously, but I thought the defense did a really good job in responding when we got to a couple of those two minute situations,” said Garrett, whose team opens up their preseason schedule against the 49ers in San Francisco on Thursday night.
“The defense took the ball away from each of the groups and they made some plays themselves, pressured the quarterback, made challenging throws and catches. They competed hard, made plays on the ball and I think all of that was really, really positive.”
The offense has struggled in two-minute drills so far in training camp.
“The defense has done a much better job in those and that was the case [Sunday],” he said. “In the two-minute drills that we’ve done in general the defense has won.”
So is that a good sign for the defense?
“It’s still really early for our whole team but what was really good about [Sunday] was a real domination by the offense at the outset and what you look for is how does the defense respond, and they responded the right way,” Garrett said. “So there was some really good things on both sides of the ball throughout the day. The best teams I’ve been on are where it’s back and forth all day and everybody is just competing and battling and no one really dominates the whole day. The other side competes back and challenges back and fights back. That’s what we’ve had really throughout training camp. I thought yesterday was a great example of it.”
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