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By Bob Sturm
Nov 21, 2022
It required a response.
Losing like the Cowboys did a week ago reminded so many of how things go this time of year when the Dallas Cowboys crisis hits. In the past few decades, how many promising seasons through 10 weeks or so do not continue on that upward ascent when things get a bit stormy? How many times has one bad game spawned several more?
For this team to take a step (perhaps a big one) to forging its own identity, Sunday would need to be a game when the Cowboys pushed back and demonstrated some resolve in Minnesota against a team that is no pushover. The Vikings were sitting at 8-1 and hadn’t lost since their Week 2 trip to Philadelphia. To beat them might be a tall task, but the Cowboys at least have to fight valiantly and assure any observer that they don’t plan on allowing a Thanksgiving week slump.
Asked and answered in the most decisive way.
Not only did Dallas set a 2022 high in yardage output and a low in yardage allowed — always a winning combination — but the 37-point winning margin of its 40-3 humiliation of the Vikings is this season’s biggest win in the NFL. Buffalo had beaten Pittsburgh, 38-3, but we know that Buffalo is very good and Pittsburgh is not (also, the game was played in northern New York). That is quite a departure from one team thinking it was playing for the No. 1 seed during warmups and then getting boat-raced to the tune of the largest spanking of the league this year.
But, wait, there is more.
It is the biggest road win in Cowboys history. There have been 13 games since 1960 that the Cowboys have won by more than 37 points, but none of them were played outside of Dallas-Fort Worth. Let that sink in for a moment and see if it matches your expectations when Sunday began. Without getting too crazy, we could pretty easily argue that Sunday’s outcome in Minnesota is so far from the realm of possibility that we must still wonder what we saw.
Dallas answered the doubts and concerns with such comical ease that we might be tempted to knee-jerk in the other direction if we aren’t crazy. That sounds appealing given the gloom and doom of the previous seven days.
What the takeaway should be on a crazy week when Dallas scored on its first seven drives — the Cowboys have not done since at least 1978 when the record books started getting serious — is that this team has a level we haven’t seen in a while around here and when it is clicking, very few teams will want a piece of it.
This is a credit to these players and coaches. The Cowboys are building something that looks a bit more sturdy than past editions with resolve that suggests a stronger spine and a more formidable collective of talent. They hear the doubts and feel the panic when they hit a slippery spot, but the answer today should encourage those who have those doubts and panic. This team appears to have another gear. And when it gets to that extra gear, there might not be many teams that can deal with Dallas.
Minnesota would probably be willing to offer its eyewitness account. The Vikings were run over by a truck that they did not see coming. It started on the game’s third snap. Micah Parsons took on Christian Darrisaw (the Vikings fine left tackle) and after Parsons’ initial move did not find a path, he powered through with a secondary chase that ran down Kirk Cousins who tried rolling to the opposite flank. Parsons caught him with ease and with a powerful right-arm swipe, the ball was free and the Cowboys recovered.
It was the response they wanted from Parsons who had been stuck on eight sacks since Oct. 23. We realize having eight sacks on Oct. 23 is a massive feat in its own right, but could he get back on pace when the team most needed a huge performance? By the end of the day, he had his fifth multi-sack game of the season, became the first NFC player to reach double-digit sacks and only trails New England’s Matthew Judon for the league lead. Parsons left at least one more on the table as he allowed Cousins to get away in the second quarter when he didn’t know the QB still had the ball. Either way, Cousins is not looking forward to dealing with him or that Dallas pass rush again as the veteran Vikings QB looked plenty spooked early in the proceedings. When a QB is looking at the pass rush and not his receivers, we know he is tired of getting hit and Cousins was holding a good thought for his protectors early in the game.
That is why this Dallas team is a significant heavyweight and why I might start sounding like a broken record. They have the best pass rush in the NFL and are doing it mostly with four rushers. They have a defensive player of the year talent in Parsons, and while it all flows off of his excellence, we should not confuse the rest of the group as ordinary. No, Dallas has two rushers with at least seven sacks (Dorance Armstrong), three rushers with at least six sacks (DeMarcus Lawrence) and amazingly, four with at least five sacks (Dante Fowler). Those four alone have a combined 28 sacks — the NFL average for full teams is 25. Dallas has 42. … and most of it comes without the blitz.
When you can bully an opponent to that extent, then it either stays stubborn to its run game — something Green Bay did pretty well the previous week — or you try to figure out a way to pass your way around the trouble and almost nobody has been able to do that this year. Dallas generates the most pressure and therefore is the No. 1 pass defense and the No. 1 scoring defense in the league.
The best part about it all? It now appears to have the No. 1 offense from 2021 building back into form.
On Friday, I suggested that they need a huge Dak Prescott performance, preferably his best effort of the year: This place will be loud and the opponent is legit. This is where you need Prescott to be in charge, understanding the decisions that need to be made, delivering the ball on target and on time, and even making a play or two himself that is off-script but badly needed.
Prescott was as close to perfect as he has been in any game in a long time and the offense was an unstoppable machine. The Cowboys went up and down the field and called any play they wanted. They started the game by going: field goal, touchdown, field goal, touchdown, field goal, touchdown, touchdown. He had a near-perfect passer rating and they could have both named the score and his final stat line. Again, they were probably rattled by the events at Lambeau Field, but in retrospect, it produced one of the best efforts of Cowboys football against a fine opponent in a hostile setting that this generation has offered.
It was almost impossible to fathom.
Another element that should probably be touched on much higher in this column was another dazzling performance from Tony Pollard. The man has had very nice days as a Cowboys weapon, but nothing like what we saw Sunday when he had his first 100-yard receiving day and caught maybe his first vertical pass as a Cowboy. It was a thing of beauty as the 68-yard touchdown off a wheel route started off the second half and converted the game into an absolute laugher. Pollard is about to make some significant money and I would strongly advise Dallas to make sure it is here. He is too explosive to not use more down the stretch. In July I discussed the wisdom in trying to get an extension done in camp with the extra cap room, but clearly, that time has passed. There will not be savings available now that he has furthered his breakout again.
It is the rarest of Cowboys games when there are nearly no complaints. Surely, the feedback about allowing your key players to remain in the game when you are up 37 will take center stage, but I generally don’t engage in that. In this sport, we can fret about worst-case scenarios and worry ourselves into suggesting everyone is in bubble wrap between downs. But, the NFL’s team roster size does not permit teams to hide too many of their best players when the game is out of hand. College has a second and third string at the ready, but in the NFL, it is about 20 guys on both sides of the ball. Does that mean a limping Parsons should be out there trying for another sack? Probably not. But if a big part of empowering this roster to take control of its own fate means offering a little player trust to your best players, I am not here to protest. I think Cowboys fans over these past 25 years in the wilderness are trained to fret every detail and worst-case scenario, rather than enjoying the journey. I prefer not to add to it in this space. Football players play football and the debates about when to pull players in the third quarter of a thumping of an 8-1 opponent on the road is a hilarious development I did not anticipate.
Allow me to offer this assurance. This team apparently can be trusted. Trusted to respond to adversity and punch back. Trusted to build a better team as the season progresses. Trusted to have depth and another gear when people start worrying about a collapse.
We don’t know where this season is headed, but Sunday should permit you to know the Cowboys are capable of some very impressive feats. This is the type of game that should offer real self-belief in a year the NFC seems vulnerable that the Cowboys have a roster that is good enough to go win something. We know that there are many twists and turns between here and the playoffs, but I would like to echo something that we have said a lot in the past few months.
Why not these guys?
With a combination of an offense that can score every drive and a defense that frequently spooks quarterbacks, why can’t Dallas climb the mountain better than any Cowboys team since the 1990s? Mike McCarthy knows what a championship team looks like and hearing him talk about this team Sunday should absolutely clue us that he likes what he is seeing.
What is not to like?
The Cowboys are 7-3 with a three-game homestand coming. They have been on the road and are seeing things fall into place. They might have used that adversity in Wisconsin to collect themselves and not allow 2021 to repeat itself. Time will tell.
But, for now, I walk away from this game blown away by the result. This team needed to answer the bell and it could not have done it in a more emphatic way. The Cowboys were asked a serious question about their status and ability and left the Vikings in ruins after that team just went to Buffalo and got a win.
If you want to know if the Cowboys are on a higher level than they were last year and are growing into a legitimate championship contender, I don’t know how much more clearly they could have answered.
They just scored their biggest road win in 63 years of football against a team that hadn’t lost in two months.
That is a pretty clear answer.
