| Projected Record | 10-7 (ACTUAL: 10-4) |
| Weighted DVOA Offense* (2023) | 9th |
| Weighted DVOA Defense | 6th |
| Early Down DVOA (2022) | 1st Down – 28th, 2nd Down – 6th |
| Explosive Play Rate* (2022) | Offense – 12th (Run 11th, Pass 14th), Defense – 17th (Run 24th, Pass 9th) |
| Key Additions | Trey Lance QB, Rico Dowdle RB, Hunter Luepke FB, Brandin Cooks WR, Chuma Edoga OT, Dante Fowler EDGE, Rashaan Evans LB, Noah Igbinoghene CB, Stephon Gilmore CB |
| Key Departures | Ezekiel Elliott RB, Noah Brown WR, T.Y. Hilton WR, Dalton Schultz TE, Jason Peters OT, Connor McGovern IOL, Carlos Watkins DI, Jibril Cox LB, Anthony Barr LB, Luke Gifford LB, Anthony Brown CB, Bossman Fat CB, Brett Maher K |
| Rookies to Watch | Luke Schoonmaker TE, Mazi Smith DI, DeMarvion Overshown LB, Brandon Aubrey K |
Injury Report
Quarterback
Dak Prescott just could not stop throwing interceptions last year. It hit the point where it was genuinely bizarre: why was a QB who played consistently as a top 10 player suddenly throwing up at least 1 INT a game? It wasn’t even that he was consistently putting up turnover-worthy plays*: PFF had him with 20, 10th behind Josh Allen, Geno Smith, Trevor Lawrence, Jared Goff, Tom Brady, and other QBs, many considered to have excellent seasons. His rate in that metric was even better, just 13th (Tua was 6th). Dak also had plus accuracy to almost every level of the field, save just one area: throws to the deep middle. His target heat map shows a guy who didn’t lean on one particular route concept or player, nor does it show a player who was constantly looking to one side of the field or some specific depth. He threw the 3rd best accurate pass rate* by PFF metrics. He just…threw picks. He had many other metrics that stayed relatively consistent, too. His passer rating was a 91.1, not close to the 2021 greatness but certainly on-par with the arc of his full career. His EPA/play* was still top 10 as usual. His yards per attempt dropped from 10th to 13th, a relatively similar level of play. He was in the 72nd percentile in positively-graded PFF plays* and the 62nd percentile in avoiding negatives*. So what gives? Watching each play, there are a few points of emphasis that Prescott had to address this offseason. First, Prescott must get better at understanding the buzz zones that the league loves now. Both linebacker and safety rotations are at the heart of many of the picks, especially early in the season. More than half of the picks are on fairly intricate rotations, with all types of players reading the eyes and coming over late to help, and getting easy picks. The second is tight window throws. The offense, likely due to coaching friction, struggled to design plays that schemed up free releases or strong outlets for Prescott that teams in this era need for their QB to remain efficient. Dak’s main dropoff in terms of counting stats was in dropbacks: Prescott dropped back to pass the 17th most in the league, trailing Davis Mills and Matt Ryan. What?! Even with only playing 14 games, that’s startling. So, with his rhythm hampered in favor of unnecessary runs and the passes themselves lacking the type of high-quality design typical of a Shanahan-style offensive coach, Prescott found himself having to rely too much on his ability to throw an accurate pass. And his INTs were not typically inaccurate or forced by pressure! They were simply misjudgments of a window compounded over and over again. Last, and perhaps most importantly, Prescott needs to simply settle down and stop pressing. Sharp Analytics points out that 7 of the 15 INTs in the regular season came on 3rd down. One of his postseason picks came on 3rd down (3rd and 9, I might add) and the other came in the red zone. It’s a perfect storm: a player who struggles to identify the rotation-based zone defenses popularized by Vic Fangio (only somewhat his fault, as coaches are literally paid to help the QB diagnose new trends) is given few options outside of tight window throws and, when forced to rely solely on his own, starts pressing and starts screwing up. Prescott also, by the way, injured his thumb in the first week of the season, sitting all the way until mid-October. So now you have all of those dynamics WITH a broken bone that required surgery in his THROWING hand. He probably lost some power, leading to a situation where even less trust should be placed in his ability to hit a tight window.
But there are so many aspects of Dak Prescott’s game that we need to laud; he is a face of the NFL for more than just his jersey color. Dak is still a monster in the two-minute drill, scoring the 8th highest in PFF passing grade and the 7th highest in EPA/play in 2022. He was also the best QB in the NFL against the vanilla looks without safety rotation in terms of EPA/play. He still carves up a blitz with the 6th highest completion percentage and the 13th best yards per attempt*. He’s one of the few QBs with the arm talent to challenge the two-high Fangio look in the seams, with the 8th highest average depth of target* against two-high safety coverages. That’s not simply risk-taking behavior, as it equated to the 7th highest yards per attempt against the league’s favorite defensive look. His team went 12-5! He’s just plain accurate, and a strong runner at that. 2020’s broken leg has scared him off of running somewhat, but he is still dynamic bursting out of the pocket and has used that strength even more this year. Through the first three years on the ground, Prescott added 20 TDs even with peak Zeke Elliott. These are the building blocks of Prescott’s game: accurate throws against a defense he has effectively diagnosed to stellar receivers who are threats all over the field, and with a little pocket moxie sprinkled in to keep defenses honest. This is Dak Prescott. He will need to be all the way Dak and more to overcome some strange philosophical discrepancies in the coaching staff that I will detail below. In 2023, he has blossomed into a genuine MVP candidate, though last week will drastically hurt that case. He’s 5th in passing yards (3639) and 2nd in passing TDs (28), and in the 4 weeks before the Buffalo game, he had 11 TDs to 0 INTs (extend that back to Week 6, he was 23:3 on TD to INT ratio, absolutely electric). Dak has dropped his turnover-worthy play percentage to 2.1%, a career low, while also posting an eye-popping 6.4% in big time throw percentage. He’s kept his ADOT, time to throw*, and yards per attempt* consistent all while posting his first 200+ yard rushing season since he broke his leg in 2020. Dak is winning, and Dak is winning his way.
And then came the Buffalo game. Prescott threw for 3.9 yards per attempt, his lowest since a head-scratching nightmare in Washington in Week 18 last year (before that, he had never thrown below 4 yards per attempt). He had 4 turnover-worthy plays to just one single big time throw. The offense was stuck in the mud, and Dak suddenly found himself looking like Tua, patting the ball as a stunt absolutely annihilates him in the pocket. It seemed to be a classic product of getting out over your skis: when you’re a consistent field analyst like Dak Prescott, certain things must go right around you. You have to be able to trust your receivers to lean on the defenders and allow you to deal to the perfect one at the perfect time. Your offensive line needs to help you avoid the distraction of an angry pass rush. Your defense has to keep you on the field and in rhythm, keeping the game to at least a score or two so that you can heat up. On a cold and rainy Buffalo evening, none of that happened and we saw a snapshot of what Dak Prescott looks like without his Efficiency Machine of an offense: it seemingly portends postseason doom, which is a damn shame considering that this is the best Dak Prescott we’ve seen in years, and his mixture of intelligence and athleticism is worth celebrating. The Dolphins will seek to disrupt the process of the machine, but can they keep their stamina closing out the weak spots in their defense all day?
Coaching
There’s only one real story of the NFL offseason for the Dallas Cowboys: what in the hell is going on offensively? After Kellen Moore was just a year removed from being a Dolphins finalist, Mike McCarthy fell out with his Wonder Kid and a mutual parting of ways was deemed necessary. For McCarthy, who has been captain of the ship for a few playoff runs now, Moore was too focused on explosives: McCarthy was quoted as saying “Kellen wants to light the scoreboard up, but I want him to run the damn ball so I can rest my defense.” Yes, that is an NFL coach in 2023 saying he would prefer a little less offense, thank you very much. It’s perhaps most odd because of how incredibly modern the Cowboys felt under their dinosaur coach, only for that coach to pull them straight back into the Paleozoic Era kicking and screaming. Will McCarthy prove true to his word? 2018 provides some context, which was McCarthy’s last year as a primary play caller in the NFL. That year, his Packers managed the 7th best offensive DVOA, but he was fired after a second straight year of missing the playoffs. At that time, the Packers had the 10th best pass DVOA and the 7th best run DVOA, and attempted the third most passes against the fewest runs in the league. Frankly, that stat line makes clear why the Cowboys believed McCarthy was such a good choice in the first place: he was throwing with reckless abandon earlier than the league realized it was the most efficient offensive strategy, and he was undone by the defense, which the Cowboys have already built to be a perennially excellent unit. It makes a stated commitment to run the ball all the more strange. The answer likely lies in another key statistic discussed above: Dak Prescott led the NFL in interceptions last year. McCarthy’s ultimate task is probably less in building a run game and more in finding creative ways to gain separation with his new offensive weapons, but his verbal bravado around physicality seems to overshadow that task when he talks to the media. The Cowboys spoke to this with their wallets and resources, trading for Brandin Cooks (an elite separator) and retaining Michael Gallup to ensure they have enough juice on the perimeter. If the commitment to modern football is in question, it is only especially worrisome because McCarthy seems hellbent on rebuilding this offense into something far from what Dak Prescott has already evolved in. McCarthy has mostly walked away from his preseason comments, as Tony Pollard has not taken the next step as an RB to truly carry the offensive load. The Cowboys throw plenty in neutral situations, and Dak has been unafraid to “light up the scoreboard.” Instead, where McCarthy’s conservatism is felt in 2023 is in the strange amount of curls and hooks that the Cowboys employ, especially in games that feel big. In some of the difficult losses (the Cardinals and the Eagles) and even the too-close-for-comfort wins (Chargers and Seahawks), McCarthy digs out a dozen quick hooks to Jake Ferguson and Brandon Cooks. It’s all the more inexplicable because these guys are doing incredible things after the catch. The Shanahan offense is all about horizontal timing routes on the run so that players can be a threat in space. Dallas will simply pepper these short hooks all over the field, counting on their players to create with their back to a defense. Only CeeDee Lamb can make this happen. As the year evolved, McCarthy finally turned to more slants and digs to meet the rest of the league but, if you consider the hooks a safe extension of the run game, you’ll struggle to watch the first 8 weeks of Cowboys football as anything but a fulfilled promise for McCarthy. When the gears of his machine get ground, McCarthy will sequence these plays together in ways that put no stress at all on a defense, which makes the fact that 3 of the 4 losses have been blowouts easy to understand.
Defensively, old Dan Quinn has shaken off the 28-3 stink as a coordinator to become one of the most respected talent developers and scheme implementers in football. A fixture of head coaching searches for the last two years, Quinn’s track record of player development in Dallas is just silly. Micah Parsons is, in two years, already one of the best defenders in football. Travon Diggs evolved from high-risk ballhawk to a much more competent and composed playmaker without losing his penchant for big plays. When Diggs got injured, Daron Bland filled his role and set the NFL record for pick-sixes. Upfront, Quinn clearly relishes the level of play and physicality his edge rushers bring, and moves them all over the field. A Doug Farrar piece in October, 2022 tracked the amount of stunts across the defensive line (moving lineman in a targeted fashion through gaps) both with and without blitzes. Through week 5, the Cowboys had 40 more stunts called than the next closest team (the similarly-deep and multiple 49ers) and the Cowboys had allowed just 5 TDs. That, of course, would not last, especially with the relatively high turnover percentage from Dak Prescott (though interestingly, they only lost 5 fumbles, tied for second best). Still, the Cowboys led the league in takeaways and were 2nd best in turnover differential, ending +10. Turnovers are often luck-based, but they can be escalated with pressure, and the sheer amount of line stunts coupled with coverage disguises can create shifting sands for opposing offenses. The top 4 teams in takeaways were the Cowboys, Patriots, 49ers, and Bills, all clearly stellar units (5th was the Texans so luck still matters). Stunts can also bail you out if you have bad defensive tackles, mitigating a strength disadvantage by forcing the OL on the other team to react to the DL, who is firing toward a predetermined direction at the snap. It also sets up a guy like Parsons in a 1-on-1 situation against a less athletic guard who is mid-rotation, a bonafide nightmare. On the back end, Quinn still goes back to the old cover 3 from his upbringing in Seattle. This specific scheme is now considered a defense that only works if you have Hall of Famers in the back to limit explosive opportunities, and so the Cowboys have spent considerable resources to ensure they have the talent all across the unit. With Stephon Gilmore and Travon Diggs (which turned into Daron Bland), coupled with strong safety play from a few different guys and talented (but oft-injured) LBs, the Cowboys have the look and feel of a modern (albeit less talented) Legion of Boom. Vic Fangio’s defense is about choosing your aggression carefully in a cat-and-mouse game, taking advantage of an offense that gets a little greedy and never opening deep windows. Quinn’s defense dares offenses to take the shot downfield, content with the knowledge that, more often than not, his will beat yours.
Offense
With the team making a move for a more balanced offense, the efficacy of this offense starts with the still-talented offensive line. Tyron Smith moves back to LT after years of health difficulties. His stretch from 2011 to 2015 was an ascension to pure dominance, missing one game over the five seasons. In 2016, a back disc injury in practice led to missing two games, but he would feel the long-term impacts for the rest of his career. Much like Terron Armstead, Smith is still as dominant as ever when he is on the field. In 2021, Smith was the most like his old self, throwing aside players in the run game and allowing just 17 pressures* in 515 pass blocking snaps. Those numbers are elite, without a doubt, and PFF ranked him below only Trent Williams, the invincible 49ers tackle. That year, the 12-5 Cowboys were 9th in rushing yards and 2nd in passing yards, losing a heartbreaker to the 49ers in the Wild Card round. 2021 was also the year after Smith finally elected to have spinal surgery in an attempt to repair the 2016 injury. Last year, the culprit was a torn hamstring in training camp that left him sidelined until returning to play out of position at RT through the end of the year. In all, Smith has missed 45 regular season games since 2016, never playing more than 13. This year, Smith turns 33, now on the downside of his prime as an elite tackle. In 421 snaps as a pass blocker this year, he’s allowed just 15 hurries and not one single QB hit or sack: Bradley Chubb is in for a long day. Smith’s replacement is on the roster: Tyler Smith will play LG this year after playing the entire season at LT due to the Tyron Smith injury. The Cowboys drafted Tyler (we’re going to need to be on a first name basis due to the T. Smith confusion) because of the absolutely insane power he displayed on tape at Tulsa in college. While the talent level was far below that of other conferences, Tyler was essentially an out-of-control semi truck in the run game, maxing out the scales of PFF in both zone and gap blocking. He just mows dudes down. We saw that nastiness last year from the LT position, especially in gap blocking, where he would erase his assignment. For a player with mediocre pass metrics and a mean streak in the run game, guard should be the preferred position, at least for now. 2022 proved that Tyler deserves a shot at tackle eventually, but his Wild Card game against the Buccaneers, where he played half the game at guard and did not allow a single pressure of any kind in the win, was proof of concept for Tyler the LG. This year, with just 17 pressures and meanness in the run game, there’s been no reason to doubt the plan. Together, the duo provide a pretty solid foundation, even allowing for injury (which has not been a substantial issue this season), on the left side. The right side projected as similarly strong, with RG Zack Martin as sturdy as ever and RT Terence Steele a rising star in the league. Martin is the quintessential unbustable first-round pick on the inside. Since 2014, he has never graded outside the top 10 in PFF OL metrics. This last year was the first year (!!) that he didn’t grade in the top 5. Even on what you would call an off year (a career year for most other NFL players, even good ones) only saw Martin allowing 17 total pressures. The real step back was in the run game, but offseason comments suggest Martin believes the team will be much better for a commitment to the run and improved communication “to allow everyone to be on the same page.” It’s easy to see such comments, too, as an admission that the Cowboys offense lacked some identity. If Martin’s play reflected a lack of commitment and coherence within the 2022 run game, it’s easy to expect a more cohesive team to allow Martin to play to his strengths. Martin is not currently top 10 in PFF grading, but he is 13th: if your worst season in a decade is as a top 20% starter, that’s Hall of Fame worthy. Steele was the force in the run game that Martin was not last year, an old-fashioned downhill run-game oriented RT. Steele was a master in the zone blocking scheme, opening up lanes for Tony Pollard to bounce around and find big-time runs. As a restricted free agent, Steele received plenty of intrigue for fans of teams looking for RTs, Miami being one. The intrigue ended when the high 2nd-round tender was placed on Steele, despite him being an undrafted free agent, and then inking a massive deal (the likely explanation is that Tyler Smith will soon slide out to LT and be on a rookie contract for 3 more years). Steele allowed just 20 pressures all year in 2022, though he did struggle a bit more against excellent pass rushers (Philly, Green Bay, and Minnesota all gave Steele some trouble). That struggle has foreshadowed a deeply difficult season this year, in which Steele has allowed 45 pressures, including 9 hits on Prescott and 7 sacks. He’s played poorly this year by any standards, let alone the standards of his contract. In the long-term plans, Steele and Tyler Smith are the bookend tackles, while Martin allows league-average newcomers to step into the interior. One such league-average guy is Tyler Biadasz, the center who is simply a reliable presence on the line. Rated slightly below average last year, Biadasz is a heady player who handles stunts and blitzes like a dream. Against a Flores Dolphins defense, he’d be the perfect counter from a blitz-identification standpoint. He is strong, but his strength requires a commitment of the body that too often leaves him off-balance. Hopefully, with a more stable offensive line in terms of injury and scheme, Biadasz can mitigate some of the balance concerns and settle into stronger, more consistent technique. This year, he has been just okay, with 21 pressures to go along with decent work in the run game. The offensive line, it is safe to say, will not be bullied this week unless they collapse as badly as they did in Buffalo (and Prescott’s own struggles likely had more to do with that).
And now, the reason that this commitment to the run does not make as much sense: the Cowboys have a fantastic receiving corps. CeeDee Lamb has ascended to the talent level that Draft folks expected when the Cowboys surprisingly had the chance to select him 17th in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft. He was a top 10 WR by PFF metrics, finishing 3rd in receptions over the course of the season and 5th in yards, adding 10 TDs for good measure. As a route runner, his suddenness and precision (as well as surprising physicality for a guy who did not test terribly well at the combine) makes him a problem in the slot and outside. He is especially lethal against man coverage, where he finished 3rd in the league in PFF grading. He had 2.9 yards per route run* against man coverage last year, placing him in the conversation with the other Uncoverable Dudes like Justin Jefferson, A.J. Brown, Ja’Marr Chase, and D.K. Metcalf. Lamb led the league in yards from the slot with 13.6 yards per catch for 967 yards total. You would love to see him do a bit more after the catch, but part of his efficacy is his skill in the slot. Last year, the Cowboys only put him out wide 36.1% of the time, and with McCarthy as the new play caller, that number has just increased to 40.3%, essentially negligible. It’s a same-old, same-old situation for Lamb, who has 2.53 yards per route run this year to 2.39 in 2022, 4.3 YAC per catch* to 4.6 last year, a 10.9 ADOT this year to 10.3 last, and 12.7 yards per catch this year to 12.8 last year. Like Dak, Lamb is playing the same game as last year but, as Lamb was essentially alone out there last year due to injuries and transactions, the strategy appears to be loading up at the position. Brandin Cooks comes over from Houston (setting the record for the most-traded player in NFL history) after he was finally affected by the Houston Nightmare. In 2020 and 2021, Cooks put up 1,000 yard seasons for the most dismal team in the league, staying in the game when the team truly did not have their heads in winning. He is still a legitimate 4.3 speed guy who will stretch defenses vertically in a mean way. Cooks posted some of his lowest average depth of target numbers over those years, demonstrating he has talent in the short game to go with his fantastic deep threat ability. With Lamb, however, Cooks will have the chance to run more deep routes, his bread and butter. Indeed, in 2023, he has the highest ADOT since 2019 with the Rams (and his lowest yards per route run since then, as he’s often out there to simply scare teams). His best game this year was against the Giants, when he had 10 targets, catching 9 for 173 yards and a score. Michael Gallup is the 3rd receiver, and the team hopes the fact that he is finally healthy will help him discover the 2019-21 form that made him one of the best 3rd options in the league. Drops plagued Gallup early in his career, with 13 in 2019 alone, but he has done much better on that front with 14 through the last three years. Injuries have somewhat hampered his ability to get yards after the catch, dropping from an average of 5 yards in 2019 to just 2.7 last year. His story is similar to last year, but Gallup has improved over last year in getting depth on routes: he has more yards per catch and better yards per route run despite a lower average depth of target. Gallup is often tasked with staying physical all game with a good outside corner (Lamb and Cooks spend time in the slot), and he plays his part admirably, winning more than you might expect. This much is true: play the Cowboys in man at your own peril. If you wisely choose to stay back in zone, then it’s up to Tony Pollard to bust you as the team’s featured runner. Pollard evolved into an absolute menace since emerging from the shadow of Ezekiel Elliott in the years prior to this one. He is shockingly good at absorbing contact: while the other runners in the tackle-breaking category are either compact players or 220+ pound players, Pollard has the body type of a receiver at 6’0” 209 pounds. It doesn’t matter. He averaged 3.76 yards after contact last year, and absolutely exploded in multiple games. He was 3rd in the league in runs over 15 yards (behind Nick Chubb and Saquon Barkley, who were on career years) and gained 476 of his yards on such chunk plays. This year, he’s taken a step back, perhaps due to injury: Pollard broke his fibula in the final game of the season and underwent surgery immediately after. He took OTAs slowly, but made it back to camp. The regression is real, though: Pollard has had more carries than last year, when he ran for 1,007 yards, but has only totaled 848. This is in large part due to his lack of 15+ yard explosives (he has 10 to last year’s 17). Last year, he was a fantastic receiver with 9.5 yards per catch and 8.9 YAC per catch, but this year those numbers are 5.7 and 6.2 respectively. He simply lacks the explosion of last year. This is likely his final year in Dallas, barring the team paying him what he is actually worth, and he will play it out on the franchise tag. His backup, Rico Dowdle, has been impressive on film and exceptionally physical, but with only 2 explosive runs, Dowdle reminds you more of Brian Robinson than Emmitt Smith. TE closes this marathon analysis, where a number of guys projected to be factors but only one has made a real impact. Dalton Schultz is gone now, moving on to the Houston Texans, and Jake Ferguson took his place. Ferguson made the most of his playing time last year, turning just 23 targets into 20 catches for 208 yards. He may not be as efficient this year, but Ferguson has totaled 614 yards on 57 catches, turning in an increased yards per reception and gaining Prescott’s trust on seam routes. He’s an absolute bruiser, with his 5.7 YAC average good for 7th in the league. Of the guys ahead of him, he might be the most angry runner. To restate the obvious, this roster is very good, good enough to lose Mike McCarthy his job if he squanders it down the stretch.
Defense
For two years now, the Dallas Cowboys have been one of the best defenses in the NFL. Opportunistic and physical, Dan Quinn has brought a scheme that squeezes pass offenses without budging in the run game, something that the Seahawks defenses of old could also do. In many ways, as discussed above, this is a schematic masterclass, but it could not be done without the sheer talent of Micah Parsons. Parsons was PFF’s best edge defender in 2021, winning Defensive Rookie of the Year despite his case really looking more like Defensive Player of the Year. He has two First-Team All-Pro awards in two seasons. He ran a 4.36 40-yard dash. He was rumored to be Brian Flores’s desired player in Miami, selected three spots before Jaelan Phillips. He also played his entire career at MLB in college, and the Cowboys surprised fans by stating that they believed he could play on the edge. It’s a career that flat out does not make sense, one that led Mike McDaniel to call him this week “one of the best players in the National Football League at any position” and insist that it isn’t even up for debate. Last year, he moved into the edge role on a full-time basis (540 snaps at LB in 2021 to 390 at edge, and just 195 in 2022 at LB compared to 859 at edge) and played to the tune of the second-best pass rush win rate against true pass sets (cutting out RPOs). While he had fewer tackles, his 106 pressures* (74 of them hurries, with the next best edge checking in at 55) were obscene. After a week 15 where he pressured Trevor Lawrence 12 times (the Cowboys lost in OT), Parsons never had another bad game, tallying 35 pressures over the next 5 weeks. He is a menace, and his presence means that the longer developing plays that can typically defeat the Seahawks-style defense deep are rendered ineffective. This year, he has 89 pressures, 1 away from topping last year’s insane regular season. This would be incredible even if he didn’t have a partner, but Parsons does in the future Ring of Honor candidate DeMarcus Lawrence, who quietly had his highest pressure mark since signing a huge extension in 2019. He has never topped 100 pressures like Parsons (very few have) but he is a long-term disruptive force for the Cowboys, and has been a plus run defender outside of missing an above average amount of tackles (12 last year, 7 so far this year). He’s back to elite status this year, with a slight decrease in his snap count yielding big dividends in his run defense. The issue with the Cowboys will lie in the rotation, where Dorance Armstong, Dante Fowler Jr., and Sam Williams offer little top end run defense and are a huge drop off in run defense. That issue plagues the interior too, where the Cowboys start a rookie and a second-year starter. The known quantity, Osa Odighizuwa, made plays last year, with 31 run stops* in 43 tackles, and he’s turned in a monster season as a pass rusher, already eclipsing last year’s mark of 31 pressures despite 100 less snaps. He’s been far better at penetrating to make tackles, missing the least of his young career. Mazi Smith, the rookie, is the Cowboys answer for further interior defensive disruption in the run game. Smith is 6’3” 323, a physical marvel, and has plenty of athleticism and strength to go with his game. Ohio State fans recognize him as the giant bowling ball going step for step with C.J. Stroud through the entire Michigan game. Guys pushing 320-330 normally go about 40 snaps to keep them fresh and speedy, but Smith handled 61 snaps with ease. The Cowboys made him their 1st round pick at 27, and it’s easy to see why they valued his skillset slightly more than his projected draft value: if they’re right, offensive lines will be dealing with three of the most physically gifted defensive linemen in the league. Time will tell: Smith is in a 3-man rotation right now with Chauncey Golston and Neville Gallimore, none of whom are answers in the run game. When Buffalo ground up this defense into soup, the DTs were somewhat exposed. Part of that was the absence of Johnathan Hankins who, like most nose tackles, gets a poor PFF grade but plays mean in the run game. He will also be missing against Miami, a potential advantage.
The Buffalo loss came down mostly to the back 7, but the ascent of the second and third levels of this defense also deserves their due. After years of never living up to his own 2018 phenom-level rookie season, Leighton Vander Esch finally turned in another nearly-900 snap season and kept consistent coverage throughout the year, allowing no TDs and maintaining sure tackling in his coverage area. At 256 pounds, you might expect more physicality in the run game, but long-term neck issues to go with a broken collarbone and ankle issues has had him in and out of the lineup. Unfortunately, Vander Esch suffered a neck injury this year that forced him to IR and his career is once again in limbo. Jabril Cox was projected to return in the middle, a year after the team hoped due to a longer recovery from a 2021 knee injury. Cox was seen as a potential second-round (and occasionally even a first-round) talent in the 2021 draft, but slipped due to concerns about size. Surprisingly, the team cut him in the offseason due to the emergence of Markquese Bell, a 2022 undrafted free agent. Bell has been surprisingly stout this year, namely in coverage where he has held opposing QBs to a rating of 90, quite good for a frequently-targeted LB. He’s still not much of a run defender (and may never be after weighing in at the Combine at 205) but the dude has speed. Think Jerome Baker. The final piece was yet another rookie, DeMarvion Overshown, who will need to show he can play consistently in the league after a rocky college career. Overshown, like Cox, has the athleticism of a DB, but was placed on IR this offseason. His replacement, Damone Clark, is the thumper at 240 pounds and has been a strong tackler this year, notching 63 tackles with just 4 misses. He does not have the pass game athleticism that Overshown or Bell has, but he has limited opponents to just 6.9 yards per catch, a good number. The calculus for the Cowboys is that these speedy DB/LB hybrids are a better fit for today’s game than a plodding Elandon Roberts type of player, and they’ve maintained that plan despite losing all three of their projected starters in one way or another. The DL will have to prove them right, and has through most of the regular season. Behind them, the safeties are simply reliable, and that’s most of what is asked of them. Jayron Kearse spends a lot of his time in the box and out over the slot, seen as the Kam Chancellor role, and has been a sure tackler since coming into the starting role from Detroit in 2021. He allowed no TDs, and put up 2 INTs with 5 pass breakups last year (2 INTs and 10 breakups in 2021). This year, he’s much worse, with 7 missed tackles coming in at more than the last two years combined while allowing 24 catches on 30 targets for over 260 yards*. It’s a major step back. Donovan Wilson provides a similar skillset, and both can be deployed across the defense. Wilson was more regularly up top in 2022, flashing similar pass coverage but missing more tackles than Kearse, and that has proved true this year as well. Malik Hooker rounds out the group: a former bust in Indianapolis as a true deep safety, the Cowboys relied on him to hold the back line. Remarkably, he was only targeted 15 times and still pulled down 3 INTs. PFF believed him to be the most consistent member of the secondary: he plays the Earl Thomas role and should (with the pass rush) limit opponents from attempting deep passes. In 2023, Hooker is the best all-around safety on the team, making 28 tackles to 3 misses and covering well enough to be targeted just 10 times. He’s a reliable deep presence, and the Cowboys will need him to play smart and disciplined football to avoid the Waddle/Hill deep ball (if Hill plays).
The other major investment in star power is at corner, where former All-Pros anchor the edges in DaRon Bland and Stephon Gilmore. It wasn’t supposed to be them alone: Trevon Diggs tore his ACL this year, a major blow to the team from an ascending star. Diggs is the poster child for high-risk, high-reward: in 2021, he hilariously allowed 1,068 yards in his coverage area on 57 catches, a whopping 18.7 yards per completion*. Complete a pass on Diggs, in other words, and you have yourself an explosive play. Don’t complete it, and you’re in trouble, as Diggs had 11 INTs and 9 pass breakups. 11 INTs, to be clear, should not happen in the modern NFL. The guys who topped 10 since 2000 are Hall of Famers (Champ Bailey, Ronde Barber, Ty Law) or great players in the peak moments of their careers (Xavien Howard, Antonio Cromartie, Deltha O’Neal, Asante Samuel). That’s the whole list: 7 guys this century with 10 picks, none with 11. The last time a player picked off 11 passes before 2021 was another Cowboy, Everson Walls, in 1981. So obviously, Diggs did not pick off 11 passes in 2022. He did, however, pick off 3 while limiting the yards per catch to a much less detrimental 12.1. Diggs is itching to play after signing a long-term deal next season, and will want to prove in 2024 that he is continuing to get better after one of the weirdest seasons in pass coverage history. Bland took his place, and promptly set records of his own: he has 8 INTs himself this year, and took 5 back for TDs (an NFL record). He is allowing a passer rating of 49.9, 4th best in the league behind Jalen Ramsey, Jaylon Johnson, and Cleveland sensation Martin Emerson Jr. Bland also gives up a relatively high 13 yards per catch, but 5 TDs is an unbelievable shot in the arm. It helps that he has a seemingly resurgent Stephon Gilmore signed to help on the other side. After wandering the injury wilderness since pre-pandemic, Gilmore finally played a whole season in Indianapolis in 2022 and looked to be pretty much the (slightly-diminished version) of the player we remember. Yes, teams did complete more passes against him than they did when he was the man coverage beast of 2018, but an 82.6 passer rating in his area on a terrible Colts team was inspiring. He’s essentially the same this year, forcing more incompletions but allowing a few more TDs, evening out to an 83.2 passer rating. With Bland as an opportunistic counter, Gilmore can be trusted to play physically again and anchor a side of the field. The two have developed chemistry (one opportunistic zone player, the other a strong mirror in man coverage) such that they could well be one of the top 5 CB pairings in the league. In the slot, the Cowboys either use the safeties or Jourdan Lewis, who returned from a Lisfranc foot injury. He was average in that position in 2022, but is far worse this year, allowing 465 yards and 3 TDs to just 2 pass breakups. Given how difficult it is to drop back and attack the perimeter, teams are wise to run the ball and throw to slot targets over the middle. Dallas makes this recipe hard by putting teams in a hole early, and Miami must avoid that trap.
Special Teams
Dallas was the 10th best special teams unit by DVOA last year, in large part thanks to the leg of Brett Maher, who was inconsistent with accuracy (51/59 on extra points is unacceptable) but hit from deep at a 9 for 11 clip. His season will be remembered for a darkly funny Wild Card game, in which he missed 4 extra points, the first to ever do that. Extra points have been tracked since 1932, so even the dudes kicking distracted because they lost everything in the crash of ‘29 didn’t miss four extra points. Maher, thus, is a free agent looking for work now, and the Cowboys landed on Brandon Aubrey to kick this year. Aubrey has been a revelation of a weapon, hitting all 31 of his FG attempts, including 8/8 above 50. Actually watching the kicks impresses you all the more: his 60 yarders are right down the middle and look good from 70. His only problem, of course, is 3 missed extra points. Stop signing guys who miss a wild amount of extra points; even though Maher had one of the best kicking seasons in Cowboys history, you still determined that he was not worth the schadenfreude and Twitter jokes. Aubrey is a clear upgrade over Maher, though, and the Cowboys just have to hope he doesn’t miss an important one. The ageless Bryan Anger, 35 and still very bald, will be punting for the Cowboys after a strong second season with the team in 2022. He was 10th in both yards per attempt and net punt, and tied for 13th for punts inside the 20. Those are perfectly acceptable numbers, but he improved this year to the best hang time since 2016 and the highest yard per attempt in his career (naturally, he also has the highest net yards of his career). Dallas seems set to have KaVontae Turpin return as their kick and punt return specialist, and his numbers suggest that he is worth keeping. He averaged over 25 yards on kick returns and 10 yards on punt returns, though PFF rated him poorly due to 3 muffed punts and some questionable decision making in terms of following his blocks. Turpin made the Pro Bowl last year, and was the USFL MVP before that. He’s avoided any muffs this year, and had two long TDs called back (he still keeps a nearly 30 yard kick return average). Dorance Armstrong is a kick blocking specialist at this point, blocking 2 in 2022, but he’s still looking for his first this year. FB Hunter Luepke Gifford is the special teams Ace this year, tallying 233 snaps and making 4 tackles.
Game Prediction
This one is a real toss-up. I’m not just spouting a platitude: Miami currently sits at -1.5 on the betting markets after being given 2 or 3 points due to home field advantage, essentially saying Vegas expects Miami to lose by half a point. PFF Greenline (their betting tool) likes Miami a bit more, but rates the matchup as one that is too difficult to call. They have power ranked the teams as the 6th and 7th best in football (Dallas at 6th) and the seeding is even with both teams at 2nd in their respective conferences (funny enough, the 49ers and Ravens also play this week, both at #1 in their conferences). How does one go about picking a team with those numbers? There are the intangible factors: both teams have been stellar at home, with the Cowboys undefeated at home and the Dolphins having lost one in Miami. If the Cowboys look flat on the road (and flat on grass, without the turf to boost their speed advantage), you have to like Miami. The Cowboys have also run circles around teams with speed, but Miami looks even a gear faster at home. I could be talked into a game where Miami looks more motivated and speedy out of the gate. How about the coaches? Mike McDaniel has been shut down by the better defensive coordinators in the league before: Belichick typically keeps Miami teams under 30 points, DeMeco Ryans ate Mike’s lunch in 2022, Steve Spagnuolo shut Miami down in the first half against the Chiefs this year, and Sean McDermott’s squad flies all over the field when they play Miami. Familiarity factors in, too: McDaniel coached with Kyle Shanahan in Atlanta under Dan Quinn in 2018, and was there for 28-3. Does he have inside information or does Quinn? I could believe it either way. Meanwhile, two old school coaches square off in Mike McCarthy and Vic Fangio, both of the “Death By 1000 Papercuts” school. Fangio is content to give up completions and runs short of the sticks and rely on his defense in the red zone. McCarthy is content taking completions and runs short of the sticks and relying on an excellent processor in Dak Prescott in the red zone. A war of attrition is sure to be waged when Dallas is on offense. Who wants this game more? Both teams are in a divisional dogfight, both teams must win out to get the chance at a Wild Card bye. Both teams are smarting from ugly losses in the last two weeks. Both teams have a QB Robot who distributes to scary playmakers and both teams will attempt to disguise coverages in hopes of short-circuiting the Robot (there is ample evidence of this working against both Dak and Tua) with opportunistic secondaries. These teams are stylistically different but, in effect, they are quite similar: they are Efficiency Machines.
So let’s get old school with this one and knock it down to the trenches. Dallas has owned the line of scrimmage outside of two key instances: the Buffalo Bills game and the Arizona Cardinals game. In both games, a mobile QB scared the stuffing out of the LBs and secondary, and the defense folded when the offense sputtered. Is that possible in Miami? Sure. Much more likely, though, is that an unequal distribution of health and talent will sink Miami’s prospects. On Wednesday, the entire starting offensive line missed practice in Miami. Connor Williams is gone, Robert Hunt won’t play, Isaiah Wynn is gone, and now Austin Jackson looks uncertain to go. Liam Eichenberg, Lester Cotton, Robert Jones, and Terron Armstead were either limited or missing entirely. Even at their best, could the tackles handle Parsons, Lawrence, and Odighizuwa? Probably not. Advantage Dallas. Can Christian Wilkins and Zach Sieler muddle up the angry Tyler Smith, the Hall of Famer Zack Martin, and the steady Tyler Biadasz? Can Bradley Chubb, Emmanuel Ogbah, and Andrew Van Ginkel beat Tyron Smith and Terence Steele all day? I doubt it. Dallas, I must conclude, is the favorite because they can beat up on Miami. The underdog mentality that Arizona brought to the Week 3 contest, as well as the desperation the Bills brought last week, are Miami’s only hope of winning at the point of attack. They are not faster or stronger on most Sundays, but they must use scheme and situation to put Dallas on their heels. And that is where the final, and perhaps most real, advantage Miami possesses comes into play: Dallas looks hopeless against pre-snap motion. In a 42-10 beatdown in San Francisco, Kyle Shanahan forced Dan Quinn out of his disguised plays by motioning anyone and everyone all over the field. All year, this slowness to diagnose motion, and a general reliance on playmakers to simply overcome leverage disadvantages through sheer speed and instincts, has cost the Cowboys. Seattle used motion (and general route concepts) that exposed the twitchy secondary, the Panthers moved the ball effectively for chunks of time, the Chargers were a field goal away from winning their game, the evidence is all over the tape. The Dolphins have the ingredients to mitigate major disadvantages, and even use them to create advantages of their own: a sharp Miami team will break Dallas’s rules and get 1-on-1 runs against a team that has struggled to make tackles and run crisp routes against a coverage team that gets exposed trying to jump routes. The win is there, and Mike McDaniel must feel it. It will need to be earned.
I couldn’t pick this game without mentioning health. Miami is in real trouble if any of the following cannot go: Tyreek Hill, Da’Von Achane, Liam Eichenberg, Javon Holland, and Xavien Howard are all nursing injuries. On the other side, Johnathan Hankins, Tyron Smith, Zack Martin, and Rico Dowdle will be real question marks. Dallas wins, sad as it makes me to say, but if the glimmer is in Mike McDaniel’s eye and not in his opponent’s, we may be celebrating a Merry Christmas Eve indeed. One last note: this game will be uncontested. Both teams are front-runners and, whether it is Dallas or Miami, look for a two score win.
Score Prediction: Dallas 28-17
Season Record (Taylor’s Picks): 11-3
Next: @ Ravens
* = See Glossary
