If somebody would’ve told you that the New York Giants would just score 10 points against the Dallas Cowboys in prime time, would you have predicted that they would win the game?
If you answered yes, then you are either lying to yourself or you have a magical crystal ball that tells the future.
The sad thing is, the New York Giants have swept the Cowboys this season and given them their only two losses so far in 2016.
I honestly don’t know what to make of last night’s performance for the Dallas Cowboys, but I know one thing, they can’t continue to play like this if they want to have any kind of success in the playoffs.
The Dallas Cowboys have a hot Tampa Bay Buccaneers team up next and they can’t afford to struggle like they have these past two games, especially on the offensive side of the ball. They need to turn things around quickly and get back to what worked for them earlier in the season.
Having said all that, here is this week’s Good, Bad, and Ugly for the Dallas Cowboys against the New York Giants.
The Good
To be completely honest, I think the only good that can be taken away from last night’s contest against the New York Giants was how well the defense for the Dallas Cowboys performed.
The pass rush was able to make things difficult for Eli Manning all night and even forced him to commit two turnovers. Linebacker Sean Lee was a man on a mission and was making plays all over the field. Of course, let’s not forget that rookie cornerback Anthony Brown was able to come up with his first NFL interception.
The defense pretty much kept the New York Giants offense contained the majority of the game, but the only blemish on what would have been a superb performance was the touchdown pass to Odell Beckham Jr.
Overall, they did everything that was asked of them and gave the offense extra opportunities to put points on the board. Unfortunately, the offense wasn’t able to take advantage.
The Bad
There was a lot of bad last night against the New York Giants, so it is little difficult to narrow down exactly which direction I wanted to go here. I ultimately decided that it was the offensive’s performance, in particularly Dak Prescott.
Now, the offensive line did what they usually do and opened up running lights for Ezekiel Elliott and provided Prescott with enough time to make plays in the passing game. So, it was in a complete disaster, but Prescott’s play was largely responsible for the loss.
Prescott had arguably his worst performance last night against the New York Giants. The first year QB looked and played like a rookie for the first time this season. He completed only 17 of 37 passes for 165 yards, one TD, two INT’s, and had a 45.4 passer rating. He also had a fumble, but luckily a heads up play by Doug Free prevented that from being yet another turnover.
It’s starting to look as if Prescott has lost that magic that helped lead the Dallas Cowboys to an 11 game winning streak. He struggled against the Minnesota Vikings and regressed even further last night against the Giants.
He had opportunities to make plays, but was inaccurate with a lot of his throws and made some poor decisions. He’s going to have to turn things around quickly because he might be on a short leash with a healthy Tony Romo waiting.
The Ugly
This was an easy one, at least from my point of view. I think the ugly for the Dallas Cowboys last night against the New York Giants was all of the missed opportunities.
The Cowboys defense got the ball back in the hands of Dak Prescott and the offense on several occasions, but they were unable to take advantage of those extra opportunities.
There were several occasions where Prescott missed open receivers with inaccurate throws, but there are other times where he just didn’t see them for some reason or another. The Giants defense deserves some credit here, but there were several missed opportunities for this Cowboys offense.
There are also a lot of missed opportunities on the defensive side of the ball.
Barry Church in particularly had three plays he could’ve made in the game that would have been game changers. He dropped two would be interceptions and was in position to make the tackle on the Odell Beckham Jr. touchdown pass, but let him slip through his grasp.
I believe Church would have made those interceptions if not for the protective cast on his forearm, but unfortunately that’s not the way things turned out.
Justin Durant also missed a potential INT later in the game that could have possibly been a game changer.
I guess you could also say Dan Bailey’s missed field goal could also be mentioned here, but even hitting the crossbar from 55 yards out is an accomplishment not many kickers in the NFL can lay claim to. You kind of just expect Bailey to make it regardless of the distance.
All of these missed opportunities helped end the Cowboys winning streak and ultimately kept them from locking up the NFC East division last night.
What is your Good, Bad, And Ugly for the Cowboys against the Giants?
Please feel free to use the comment section below to share your thoughts and opinions on this topic.
