Breaking down the Dallas Cowboys Week 2 debacle in Denver

• Obviously the Cowboys were incapable of doing anything offensively. The Broncos chose to stack the box and force Dallas to run into eight man fronts. The goal was to take Ezekiel Elliott out of the equation. They did so to perfection.

Elliott gained only eight yards on nine carries. Those numbers seem unfathomable from a guy widely considered to be one of the best running backs in the league. It seems especially inconceivable given the resources spent on the offensive line.

Give the Broncos credit for coming up with the scheme and even more so for being able to execute it so successfully. Here’s my problem with what occurred, however.

This cannot be the first time ever this team has seen loaded fronts.Failing to find creative ways to get Elliott in space or win one-on-one battles up front is just as troubling as the statistics show.

• On that note, the failure in the running game does not fall solely at the feet of Elliott or this offensive line. They need to be better but a productive passing game would have made a world of difference.

Dak Prescott has had a couple of below average games in his career. Sunday’s was, for my money, clearly his worst. There were too many instances of throws that were late, inaccurate or just the wrong read.

Watching the tape, the Broncos won a lot of the head-to-head matchups against the Cowboys receivers but they did not win every time.

Prescott appeared to be tentative and clearly rattled by the lack of a run game to lean on.  Several balls came out wildly inaccurate. He missed high, low, left and right. For a guy who has completed 67% of his passes, to be so inconsistent was shocking.