Dallas Cowboys defense was awful in ‘real time.’ On second look, it’s actually worse.
In their last 120 minutes of football, the Dallas Cowboys have played approximately eight minutes at a level that is good enough to compete. Not to win. To compete. To stay close.
That’s 0.0666 percent of the time. Fits, doesn’t it?
Their inability to run the ball, or stop the other team from doing just that, are so well documented the evidence is headed to the National Archives; the head coach is only too sure of what’s ahead when they play in New York against the Giants on Thursday night.
“Definitely the last two weeks, it’s going to be a clear target on us. And we have to stop it,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said after his team’s loss on Sunday against Baltimore. “It’s our run defense and the attempts on our run offense. We’re clearly not where we need to be right now.”
Clearly.
As the Cowboys, led by owner Jerry Jones, bravely participate in their current rhetorical accountability fest, there is the matter of whether they are actually good enough to be as good as the captain of Forbes’ most valuable sports franchise believes.
In this “All In” season, the team is showing signs of McCarthy’s first year here, other than his starting quarterback suffering a season-ending injury in Week 5. That was 2020, when McCarthy at least had the mess of COVID protocols to lean on as an excuse, as well as the absence of his quarterback.
Here in 2024, coaching on the final year of his contract, “McCarthy” is to “Job Security” as “Puppy Chow” is to “Cabernet Sauvignon.” After watching the Cowboys in Week 2 and 3, someone in the McCarthy family should create a Zillow account.
This season is far from done, and despite that fountain of optimism this is much worse than even the the dourest of doomsday forecasters feared. The Cowboys played well enough to win in Week 1 against what is fast becoming another lost season in Cleveland, and followed that with historically awful performances at home.
The defense here in ‘24 is just as bad as it was in ‘20, possibly worse, when Mike Nolan was the defensive coordinator. Nolan was here because he had a relationship with McCarthy; that friendship could not save his job and he was gone after one year.
What the Cowboys have done these last two weeks under “new/old” defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer makes Nolan’s crew look passable. As bad as it all was in real time, watching the Cowboys front seven on tape is like a Stanley Kubrick torture scene.
Watching 2023 first-round draft pick Mazi Smith play tackle makes you think every member of the Cowboys coaching staff and scouting department should be drug tested. Maybe take a breathylzer.
That, or the defensive coordinator when that selection was made, Dan Quinn, encouraged picking Smith as a part of long range plot to hurt the Cowboys when he became the head coach of the division rival Washington Commanders (that didn’t happen, but Quinn was in love with Smith’s measureables).
The numbers from these last two games look more like the stuff of science fiction.
* There are the obvious numbers, most notably Saints running back Alvin Kamara and Ravens running back Derrick Henry combining to run for 266 yards on 45 carries with five touchdowns.
* Quarterbacks Derek Carr and Lamar Jackson have thrown a combined eight incomplete passes against the Cowboys with one interception. Cowboys quarterbacks Dak Prescott and Cooper Rush have thrown a combined 37 incompletions with two interceptions (Rush was 1-for-3 passing against the Saints).
* The Saints and Ravens combined to run 17 third- and fourth-down plays. The Cowboys ran 30.
* The Saints and Ravens ran a combined 116 offensive plays against the Cowboys with their respective quarterbacks “under center.” Of those plays, 51 have gone for at least seven yards, or short touchdown plays.
That means 44 percent of the offensive plays against the Cowboys that featured the other team’s quarterback on the field were good for at least seven yards, or six points.
* The Saints and Ravens ran the ball a combined 84 times; 25 of those carries went for two yards or less.
Buuuuuuuut, five of those “short gains” were via the quarterback taking a knee in victory formation. Aaaaaaand, two of those “short gains” were touchdown runs.
All of this carnage is from but two games — 120 minutes - of football. As awful as it was live, rewind is worse.
The Cowboys insist this can, and will, improve. Believe at your own peril.
You know the old adage, “Just when you think it can’t get any worse, you remember Jerry Jones is the general manager, too.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2024 at 3:37 PM.
