The defense as a whole played well Sunday, but in the secondary, safeties are our Achilles heel.
Barry Church and JJ Wilcox continue to miss tackles and take poor angles. Game after game, this safety tandem is giving up big plays in crucial times, because of poor tackling. Furthermore, when Barry Church was asked to cover Dion Lewis when he split out wide he failed, miserably.
Dion Lewis was a factor all night, racking up 8 catches for 59 yards, and a TD.
JJ Wilcox does a nice job when asked to shadow receivers on the double team. But he also struggles to cover players one on one in space.
If this poor play continues I’d like to see Corey White get a chance at safety. He did it in the preseason and played well. He also played well in his opportunities this past Sunday at CB; he took advantage of his opportunity and deserves more.
A bright spot, however, was Byron Jones; the rookie stepped up to the challenge and defended Rob Gronkowski as well as you could ask. Four catches for 67 yards… I count that as a win for the rookie. Week in, week out, he continues to impress me.
Safety play is crucial for a good defense. They are crucial to stopping big plays and have to take care of TEs and Backs out of the backfield. No matter who is back there playing for the Cowboys, they need to do a better job.
