Dallas Cowboys won battle of the pits against Rams; Can they continue?

The offensive line has been pretty good all year in pass protection, but they’ve been poor in run blocking, which has been their specialty for years. Center Travis Frederick hasn’t seemed fully recovered from his bout of Guillain-Barré syndrome, which kept him out for the entire 2018 season.

Perennial All-Pro right guard Zack Martin has been less than his usual stellar self, suffering from various injuries as well. But perhaps the Cowboys’ biggest problem has been with the left guard position.

Second-year guard, Connor Williams, out injured now, though a competent pass blocker has not been the strongest run blocker. Though he bulked up in the weight room over the off-season, Williams still hasn’t been dominant on the push-off, which is what the Cowboys need from him.

When Williams got injured a few weeks ago, Su’a-Filo came in, but often had problems executing complicated blocking schemes. This week, though, he played much better.

And Martin and Frederick were excellent. They looked like the Cowboys of old, pushing around opposing defenders, blowing holes in the line for Elliott and Pollard to run through.

I looked at the film of this game to see what was different this week. What I found surprised me. I was looking at Su’a-Filo in particular and upon closer scrutiny, he played even better than I thought.

There were several plays in the Cowboys first scoring drive where the left tackle made key blocks. On third and three, on the Dallas 17, Su’a-Filo pushed the opposing defender out of the way to make a hole for Elliott.

Then, a few plays later, he charged four yards past the line of scrimmage to spring Elliott for a 10-yard gain. That’s just excellent blocking. When the running back’s first contact with a defender is five yards beyond the line, that’s a very good place to be. Any ball carrier would love to have that kind of blocking.

In the interest of being thorough, Su’a-Filo did get beat a few times by Aaron Donald. But neither resulted in a sack, and after all, the Pro Bowler Donald is one of the best defensive tackles in the league.

One interesting thing I noticed: Not much fancy blocking. There wasn’t much pulling. In fact, there might not have been a single pull block in the whole game. This is when one offensive lineman runs across and behind his fellow blockers, to punch a hole in the opposite wing of the line.

In past years, the Cowboys have done a lot of this, and to great effect, when running to one side. This is where Su’a-Filo has had trouble recently, so they didn’t do it.

It looks like offensive coordinator Kellen Moore has finally learned his lesson and decided to play to the line’s strengths as opposed to a weakness. It was a wise choice. The whole line performed great all day.