Dallas Cowboys early success the result of winning the offseason
By Matt Aaron
2. Quarterback Dak Prescott’s improvement
The Cowboys also hired longtime veteran quarterback Jon Kitna to be their new quarterbacks coach. By all accounts, he’s helped Prescott to improve his throwing and footwork mechanics, which has resulted in his excellent play.
Obviously, Dak himself also deserves a lot of the credit. Regardless of coaching, very few quarterbacks ever achieve this level of performance. In his first game back, Prescott earned a perfect passer rating of 158.3, throwing for 405 yards and four touchdowns, en route to a 35-17 win.
Those are MVP numbers. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones must be flexing his check-writing hand as we speak.
3. Offensive line back to elite level
Can you remember our line play of a year ago? I mean, without breaking out in tears? Travis Frederick was out of the line-up with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disorder most of us had never heard of. Connor Williams was getting tossed around like a sock puppet.
The rest of the line was also underperforming, largely, it seems in retrospect, because new offensive line coach Paul Alexander’s different techniques were not working for the players. This year, with a whole offseason working with newly elevated offensive line coach Marc Colombo, they all look better, especially La’el Collins, who has been playing great.
Frederick’s return and Connor Williams’s additional 20 pounds of muscle haven’t hurt either. It looks like the Cowboys’ dominant offensive line of old is back.