Week 7 Preview: Dallas Cowboys face heated rival Philadelphia Eagles
Previewing the Dallas Cowboys
Despite Cowboys executive vice president and director of player personnel Stephen Jones saying otherwise, head coach Jason Garrett’s job is likely in jeopardy if the team cannot turn things around soon after such a bad loss to the New York Jets. The fans have long been annoyed with his brand of play calling and management, and it’s hard to imagine he gets a new contract at season’s end if a team of this level of talent continues to underperform playing this level of uninspired football.
The team has come out of the gate completely flat the last four weeks. Couple the unacceptably slow starts with a defense that has been unable to fix several issues and what you have is an extremely talented team gasping for air this early in the season. The defense has been filled with unexpected letdowns so far this season.
Perhaps the biggest let down of the entire team belongs to the line-backing core. Highly touted as one of the best in the league before the season, Linebackers Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch have regressed badly this season. This defense was built around the linebacker position. Cowboys fans shouldn’t expect things to get better until the duo figure out the issues and play like the Pro Bowlers they are.
On offense, it’s hard to place a lot of blame for the way the last few weeks have gone on Prescott. He’s completing nearly 70 percent of his passes, he ranks third in passing yards and yards per game, has thirteen touchdowns to six interceptions (three of which were tipped passes) and is still the NFL leader in QBR.
The offense has stalled because of three reasons – dropped passes, penalties, and injuries to the offensive line. The Cowboys are second in the NFL with 11 dropped passes. That has been a killer for so many drives this season. Dallas is also the sixth most penalized team in the NFL and has been given the second most penalty yards in the NFL this season.
The keys to winning this game for Dallas will have to be limiting the costly miscues. The Cowboys really have beaten themselves more than anything in the last three weeks. If they can just stop shooting themselves in the foot with bad penalties, costly turnovers, or dropped passes on third downs, they can get back into the win column.
The gameplan will also revolve around the availability of several of their injured stars. If wide receiver Amari Cooper cannot play, or if Smith and/or Collins cannot play again this week, then it falls on wide receivers Michael Gallup and Randall Cobb to step up in the passing game, and on the coaches to devise an offensive scheme that allows Prescott to get rid of the ball quickly to help neutralize the threat from the Eagles defensive front.