Analyzing the highs and lows of the Dallas Cowboys’ season heading into the bye week
It hasn’t been the smoothest start to the season for the Dallas Cowboys, but it also hasn’t been the worst.
Six games with three wins on the road, three losses at home. It’s not what everybody predicted after Dallas carried a 16-game regular season home winning streak into the season and went 3-5 on the road in 2023. Nevertheless, the Cowboys sit at .500 and just one game out of the NFC East lead despite pessimism growing about where the team is headed during the final 12 weeks of the season.
Surprises, fulfilled and unfulfilled expectations along with a little dash of unpredictability have made up the first six weeks of the year. Let’s take a look at how the Cowboys got to the bye week.
Biggest positive surprise
While he hasn’t been perfect, Cooper Beebe has wiped away any and all doubt around his ability to be an NFL center through the first six games of his career.
It would’ve been hard to imagine the current reality just over two months ago when Beebe was struggling to simply snap the football on target, but the rookie third-round pick out of Kansas State has been a welcomed addition to the Cowboys offensive line.
Beebe’s strengths have shown in pass protection where he has allowed just eight pressures and two sacks on the season. While he could benefit from a quicker pass-off and approach to the second level in the run game, Beebe has shown improvement in each contest he’s played to this point.
Biggest negative surprise
While it was expected that Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb would need a few games to find a stride in their connection from a season ago, it’s a bit surprising that it has taken this long for the two All-Pro talents to re-establish their chemistry.
While statistically CeeDee Lamb is having a better start to this season than he had before the same week seven bye in 2023, Prescott and Lamb have left a lot of meat on the bone with missed big play opportunities including two interceptions in the end zone in the last two games on passes intended for Lamb.
After a finish to the season in 2023 that cemented the best year for a receiver in franchise history, Lamb has yet to find that same mojo after missing the entirety of the offseason while awaiting a new contract extension agreement.
Sounds about right
Sometimes things go just as you expect them to go, and there are few more glaring examples than how the Cowboys’ run game has performed through six games.
Ranking dead last in the NFL in rushing yards (463), yards per carry (3.5) and touchdowns (2), the Cowboys are the only team in the NFL without a carry of longer than 20 yards this season.
The by-committee approach has seen Rico Dowdle cement himself as the starter over the last few weeks with Ezekiel Elliott getting very limited work (7.3 touches per game) and Deuce Vaughn being relegated to a game day inactive over the last two weeks. Despite Jerry Jones and the front office continuing to pump confidence into the group present in Dallas, the running game has fallen well short of being a productive piece for the offense this season.
Biggest disappointment
I must say, the defense fooled me.
After a training camp that saw players such as Trevon Diggs, Eric Kendricks, DeMarvion Overshown and more shine, confidence was high going into the season under new defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer who took over a fifth-ranked defense in total yardage from 2023.
Expectations rose with a more complex scheme that saw disguised coverages give the Cowboys and Rams offenses trouble in training camp settings, but instead that complexity has only muddied the defensive tasks. Six games in, the Cowboys sit 24th in total yardage allowed, a stark dropoff from the performance last season.
Granted, injuries have played a key role. But in a three-game stretch to start the season that saw just about every player other than DaRon Bland play, the Cowboys still gave up 557 rushing yards, the most to start a season through three weeks since 1963.
Most impactful injury
The Cowboys were used to creating turnovers under Dan Quinn, and that hasn’t quite translated under Zimmer as they head into the bye with only five takeaways. After a 2023 season where he led the NFL in interceptions, cornerback DaRon Bland and his ball-hawk ability has been sorely missed in the secondary.
Still awaiting his season debut after suffering a foot fracture in the final days of training camp, Bland’s return will give Dallas a boost in a turnover margin category that has the Cowboys tied for the third-worst mark in the league at minus-six.
Reason for optimism
Not only will the Cowboys get nearly all of their injured stars back at some point during the season, but a handful of those players can bring game-changing ability to the field.
The three wins for the Cowboys so far have been cumulative efforts, strong defense leading to opportunities for the offense and vice-versa. We have yet to see one player take off and put their fingerprints all over a win like players on this team have done before.
Think back to CeeDee Lamb exploding for 227 yards in a one-point win over Detroit last season, or Micah Parsons accounting for two sacks and a forced fumble in a win over the New York Jets. Those games will almost certainly come for a roster that still features 11 All-Pros despite the talent lost to free agency over the offseason.
Reason for pessimism
Physicality has been a constant theme in the three losses this season and the six suffered in 2023, and there is little confidence that it is something that can be fixed overnight.
It shows up on both sides of the ball in the run game where Dallas is rushing for the fewest yards in the league (463) and allowing the seventh-most rushing yards defensively (859). Specifically on the defensive line, injuries and underwhelming play from veterans Linval Joseph and Osa Odighizuwa make up one of the worst units statistically through six games.
Without a correction in the physicality department, the Cowboys will continue to lose games against tough opponents. Even if they do rattle off a win streak, the show could still stop just as easily as it did in 2023 when they ran into a physical team in the playoffs.
Predicting the rest of the season
The unpredictability of the season’s first six games make the final 11 games even more difficult to forecast, but it’s easy to expect a finish that has the Cowboys fighting to stay above .500 in the season’s final weeks.
Even with Washington’s strong start to the year, the NFC East should still be within reach in the final weeks, as a pivotal week 18 matchup against the Commanders could determine if Dallas squeaks into the playoffs or is left out for the first time since 2020.
I see Dallas finishing 9-8 – with a key win over Cincinnati and a sweep of Philadelphia – and losing in the Wild Card round of the playoffs for the second consecutive season.
This story was originally published October 18, 2024 at 9:03 AM.
