What is wrong with the Dallas Cowboys defense?

The Dallas Cowboys are struggling against teams that are not known for their offense. What do their defensive struggles this season boil down to?

Coming into Week 14 as Pro Football Focus’ 28th best quarterback in the NFL was Mitch Trubisky. Really struggling in the 2019 season, with many across the league wondering how much longer he will be the Chicago Bears’ quarterback of the future, he had no troubles against the Dallas Cowboys defense on Thursday.

Trubisky was efficient on Thursday night, going 23/31 for 244 yards and 3 touchdowns through the air. He was also effective in the ground game, rushing 10 times for 63 yards and another touchdown. Receiver Allen Robinson caught two touchdown passes.

A recent trend for the Cowboys has been their lack of stopping the run. As this was evident with Trubisky having success on the ground, the same went for rookie running back David Montgomery ran for 86 yards on 20 carries.

A Dallas defense who has solid stats has not passed the eye test much of this season. Even in games where the offense has performed well, the defense hasn’t been able to stop teams from scoring points.

The Cowboys defense did come up with their first turnover in four games, with a beautiful interception by Jourdan Lewis at the Dallas 1 yard line. The team also came up with two sacks on the night.

The glaring issue was tackling, or, the lack thereof. Darian Thompson led the team with nine tackles, followed by Jaylon Smith, Robert Quinn, and Byron Jones. Outside of those four players, nobody had more than five tackles.

After the loss to Chicago, the Dallas defense still is good on paper. Plenty of talent across the board, including numerous Pro Bowlers. They are now tenth in total defense, allowing 20.5 points and 326.2 total yards per game.

Over the past two weeks, they have given up 26.5 points per contest. Now, as the 17th best run defense in the NFL, that sticks out to me as the issue with the defense. Teams are able to run the ball, which opens up the passing game. This ultimately leads to pass rushers like DeMarcus Lawrence losing the ability to do what he does best, rush the passer.

As teams are able to run the ball on early downs, third-down conversions become easy. This was evident on Thursday as the Bears had no trouble converting. Overall, if the Dallas Cowboys defense is going to turn things around, I think it starts with figuring out how to stop the run.