Cowlishaw: Why this Cowboys team is even better than 2014 squad

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Why this Cowboys team is even better than 2014 squad

By Tim Cowlishaw , Staff Columnist

CLEVELAND -- The Cowboys believed they were the rare team that could see the future by pressing rewind. They used the draft to turn back the clock to the 2014 Cowboys. We can now say at the midpoint of the 2016 season that they missed the mark.

This team is better than that one.

A 35-10 walk-in-the-park past the worst team in the NFL didn't tell us anything new. You don't measure yourself when you play the Cleveland Browns. You just breathe a sigh of relief that you are not them, and you get out of town.

With their seventh straight victory, the Cowboys got the now customary performances from rookie stars. Dak Prescott threw for three touchdowns and completed 78 percent of his passes without a miscue. Ezekiel Elliott stopped just short of the 100-yard mark for the second straight game but only because it was the kind of game where Alfred Morris could get 17 carries to Elliott's 18. The rookie still ran for two touchdowns as the Cowboys put this one away on his second TD that opened the third quarter.

So what we have here is a 7-1 team at the halfway mark. The lead is a full two games on New York (5-3) in the NFC East and 11/2 games on Atlanta (6-3) for best record in the NFC. Better than the 2014 Cowboys who finished 12-4 and knocked on the door of the NFC championship game? That certainly seems to be the case.

If you want to compare the rookie Prescott to Tony Romo at 34, it's closer than anyone ever imagined. Romo finished that season with 34 TD passes and nine interceptions. Most consider it his finest season. After eight games, Prescott has 15 TD passes, two interceptions and brings a running threat to games that he uses sparingly but appropriately. He now owns six of the 10 best single-game passer ratings by Cowboys rookies.

In other words, he's really good on a weekly basis.

Likewise, Elliott's 891 rushing yards lead the NFL, and he's just off the pace to match DeMarco Murray's team record achieved in 2014 (1,845 yards). Consider that Elliott was just learning the ropes the first two games of the season after missing the preseason almost entirely. He's still a good bet to break Eric Dickerson's NFL rookie record (1,808 yards) and Murray's.

Elliott is a slightly quicker, fresher version of what Murray gave this team in his fourth NFL season. And the line is mostly the same, just better.

"We are executing at a high level," guard Zack Martin said. "We are taking care of the football, and our defense is playing lights out. If we can keep this up, it's going to be a fun year."

It's even a plus (in an odd way) that Dez Bryant continues to provide a spark for this team only erratically. He was good against Philadelphia last Sunday night. Against Cleveland, Geoff Swaim caught more passes, and Gavin Escobar hauled in more touchdowns.

That's another way of saying Bryant caught one pass for 19 yards and dropped two others.

The 2014 team relied on Bryant for big plays. Those Cowboys were 9-2 when he scored a touchdown, 3-2 when he didn't. This team wins with an indifference to Bryant's performance, especially given that he missed three of the team's seven wins with a knee injury.

Since a one-point loss in the season opener, Dallas has won seven in a row. Only one Cowboys team ever won eight straight games, and that came in 1977, the franchise's second Super Bowl season.
As one might expect, head coach Jason Garrett had nothing to say about the team's 7-1 record and hot streak.

"Being in the moment is the goal," he said.

Owner Jerry Jones' thoughts had more to do with the dismal reminder of 2015.

"The fact we've been limited with key players -- Dez, specifically, and Romo -- I just never really dreamed we could have the team we've got and not have those players for key points," he said.
One positive is that this is not new territory. In 2014, it was for Garrett and coordinators Scott Linehan and Rod Marinelli. At least they had not experienced any degree of success together. With a better idea of what works and what to avoid, this staff puts rookie leaders in position to succeed.

And then there is the path itself. We are forced to change our minds each week as to which teams might provide roadblocks for the Cowboys on the way to Houston and Super Bowl LI. After three straight defeats, the Minnesota Vikings seem to have removed themselves from this list. Seattle and Russell Wilson represent the only really recent success in the NFC that might matter in January, but these Seahawks don't appear to be those Seahawks.

For now, the Garrett approach of one snap at a time works best. But each week provides new evidence that stacking one good practice after another actually matters in 2016 as these Cowboys look to stake their own place in history, not just serve as a reminder of what we saw in 2014.

Historic streak

The Cowboys won their seventh game in a row, their longest winning streak in a season since 2007. It's also tied for the second-longest regular-season streak in franchise history:

 
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