It may not surprise you to hear this, but in a world filled SHOCKING headlines and podcast episode descriptions—YOU WON’T BELIEVE about how this TEAM dominated an opponent who had NO ANSWERS—I believe we can get a bit loose with language in sports conversations. Such was the case ahead of Sunday’s contest against the Panthers in Carolina, which was branded as THE REVENGE GAME for former Cowboys running back Rico Dowdle, who departed as a free agent in the offseason. This was a run-of-the-mill exit; there was no spicy animus. But athletes are athletes and running backs are often the most extreme practitioners of the “I am scorned, and will now exact my retribution!” mantra. Dowdle played the part, warning the Cowboys to “buckle up.”
Imagine (yeah, just “imagine”) there was a kid who had bullied you in high school. This really sticks with you, and some years later, you run into this bully. You’re doing well in life, and now it’s revenge time. But when you look over at your adversary, you see that life has dealt him a different hand. He is stricken with disease, confined to a wheelchair. If you walked over and badly beat up this person, his body just losing any will it had left to fight, that is not REVENGE. It is punching down.
That was the Cowboys defense in a nutshell when Dowdle ran for 183 yards on 30 carries, with four catches for 56 yards, including a 36-yard score on one of a handful of complete backend busts by the Dallas defense. Dowdle is a good player, and the Panthers can run the ball. But Dowdle is playing on a one-year deal in Carolina to back up the injured Chuba Hubbard. That’s probably why Jerry Jones found the prospect of a Rico Dowdle revenge spot amusing prior to the game. His conspicuous absence after the 23-20 loss suggests he probably doesn’t anymore.
There seemed to be some illusion after the Giants and Bears games that the Dallas defense might be respectable against the run, but the numbers never backed that up. Opposing offenses had simply been too enamored with the perfumed thigh of the pass to truly hammer the Cowboys with the run for 60 (or more) minutes. This is the only dilemma opposing quarterbacks and offensive coordinators face. You can bend or break this defense.
Breaking it comes with perhaps a little more risk, so it comes down to how much a team trusts its quarterback and pass protection. Most teams correctly adhere to what FOX’s Greg Olsen said during the telecast of this game: “If you can run and pass well, pass. A good pass is better than a good run.” He was talking about the versatility and efficiency of Dallas’ top-tier offense. The issue is that the Cowboys defense turns every offense it plays into the Cowboys offense. If the Cowboys had somehow forced Panthers QB Bryce Young to drop back 60 times, I have a hard time believing they would have given up fewer than 30 points. (Young completed as many deep passes and had more yards on deep passes (89) than he did over his first five games combined, per NextGenStats.) However, that plan would have a little higher variance and instability than simply running the ball for six yards a carry right up until the winning field goal, a 15-play drive that drained the final 6:07 off the clock.
If there is legitimate criticism to be leveled at a defensive coordinator who took a job expecting to build a defense with a generational talent who was subsequently traded the week before the season, this is it. Matt Eberflus has no shot at fielding an even good defense on a snap-to-snap basis this year. None. DeMarvion Overshown coming back, a potential trade for an (insert defensive position), these things may help, but not enough to change what should be the goal over the next 11 games. As our David Moore wrote last week, this is the pressure point on which the balance of the season hinges: the square-peg-round-hole situation between the coach and the collection of players.
Eberflus would be wise to cut the brakes and lean further into a style that takes advantage of the only thing that could produce good results for this defense: luck. I say that somewhat in jest, but the term “pick your poison” is not supposed to be a buffet-type situation. The Cowboys have deployed a stacked box on 34.5 percent of the rush attempts they’ve faced, just below league average (36.5 percent). Eberflus has blitzed on 23 percent of passing snaps, the ninth-lowest rate in the league. Dallas has to start going for broke on early downs, and if opponents can still produce five yards a carry against eight- and nine-man fronts, so be it. You’ve exhausted all options.
Will an increase in blitzing and man coverage lead to more easy conversions, explosives, and scores? Probably so. The Cowboys will continue to get Tabasco in their eyes. But it always increases the chances for a sack or other negative plays, and getting the quarterback behind the chains is the coin of the realm for this unit. It is the only moment it can exhale.
Moving the sliders around on the “risk” controls might provide the offense occasional breathing room, but it’s unlikely any equation is going to produce more than just a little bit of help. Brian Schottenheimer and Dak Prescott’s side of the ball has little margin for error; every play call, read, and throw needs to be correct. This situation is exacerbated by the absence of CeeDee Lamb, for sure, because you have to think some of the early-down run calls that Olsen was critical of would have been passes with both Lamb and George Pickens on the field. The absence of receiver and return specialist KeVontae Turpin is perhaps even more impactful. Not only does Turpin have a chance to give the Cowboys control of the game on any of his eight to 10 touches, he also is an All-Pro returner. With Jaydon Blue and Jalen Cropper in the mix on Sunday, we were reminded not to take that experience for granted.
Most Cowboys games will basically be a microcosm of the season: an exciting highwire act with a coin-flip ending. It has been discussed ad nauseum, but the front office put itself in this situation where the offense and defense struggle to play “complementary football.” Where the imported defensive philosophy doesn’t mix with the domestic talent. When the season ends, if the Cowboys don’t have real success, the Micah Parsons saga will be blamed, and for Jerry Jones, that will once again mean outsourcing criticism instead of looking inward. What were we supposed to do on defense when our best player forced his way out like that?
But what’s done is done, and there are 11 regular-season games to be played. Through the first six games, the Cowboys are the sixth team in NFL history to score 175-plus points and have no more than two wins. A lot more statistics like that are most likely coming our way. Their only hope defensively is to turn up the speed on the ride, steer into chaos, and see what happens. And something must happen quickly; the season could be over if Dallas drops the next two games against Washington and at Denver to fall to 2-5-1.
I hate to say it, but right now, this feels like Jones family alchemy at its finest. Exciting football, no real logical bases for optimism, but the rollercoaster will run nonstop for the remainder of the season.
Buckle up?
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Jake Kemp
Jake Kemp
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Jake Kemp covers the Cowboys and Mavericks for StrongSide. He is a lifelong Dallas sports fan who previously worked for Sports Radio 96.7/1310 The Ticket and currently co-hosts the podcast "The Dumb Zone." He has cried at least once during every movie about football he's ever seen and enjoys celebrating life through sports.