Cowboys highlights from an otherwise bleak practice vs Broncos

If there was an overall takeaway from the Dallas Cowboys‘ joint practice against the Denver Broncos on Thursday, it would be that the Broncos got the best of the Cowboys. Denver continually outscored the Cowboys, the Dallas offensive line unit struggled, and even though Mike McCarthy explicitly stated that he wanted no fighting, there were reportedly at least six skirmishes between the two sides.

In a scrimmage that was supposed to highlight all the Cowboys have been working on, the team just didn’t seem to execute the way they wanted to. Plus, backup TE Ian Bunting and rookie DT John Ridgeway were walked off the field with injuries.

Despite arguably “losing” the practice to Denver, there were some highlight moments. Even Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott felt the experience was a good learning opportunity.

"“We got better. We took a step. You go on the road and play in someone else’s practice environment, things can get chippy. But when you put that to the side and look at the X’s and O’s and execution. We took a step.”"

Let’s take a look at some of the more positive moments from Thursday.

3 highlight-worthy Cowboys moments from an otherwise disappointing joint practice with the Broncos

Arguably, the play of the day came from a surprising under-the-radar Cowboys player.

Defensive end Tarell Basham had a great pick-six against new Broncos QB Russell Wilson. Basham was a former third-round pick by the Colts who is set to enter his sixth year in the NFL. He’s only had one career interception before this.

After a pass was deflected off a Broncos player’s hand, Basham looked up, caught the ball, turned on the jets, and made his way to the end zone.

Dak Prescott started the day strong, but fizzled out a bit.  After completing nine of his first 10 passes, he ended the day 24 for 33. He did manage to get a nice touchdown in with his new WR1 CeeDee Lamb. The QB found Lamb who outran his coverage and easily walked into the end zone.

Similar to most days in training camp, second-year lineabcker Micah Parsons seemed to be the star of the day. The 23-year-old had constant pressure on Russell Wilson, and if he were allowed to sack the quarterback, he likely would have done so many times.

When asked how amny sacks he thought he had, Parsons told reporters “quite a few.” His performance was so domiannt that Broncos’ head coach Nathaniel Hackett called the linebacker a “beast” in his post-practice press conference.

It wasn’t all great, but there were definitely moments worth highlighting. Hopefully, the nerves and hesitancy is all out of everyone’s system and tomorrow night’s game will be a much better dsiplay of Cowboys football.