While much of Sunday’s victory over the New York Giants featured some ugly football from the Dallas Cowboys, the team continued to fight until completing a 20 point route of their division rivals.
Of course, stars emerged on both the offense and the defense throughout the game. Rod Smith had a breakout day, Dez Bryant made a couple of “vintage” plays, and Sean Lee returned to health and led the defense to a fantastic performance.
But as we all know, quarterbacks make the world go ’round. And no matter how great the other pieces play, it’s hard to win football games unless you can maintain high level quarterback play.
Dak Prescott returned to that high level against the Giants on Sunday.
Even if Prescott is missing throws or having accuracy issues, he had never lost his composure or made the wrong reads until that Atlanta Falcons debacle. I really believe that Dak lost faith in his protection, began abandoning clean pockets, and ended up having a few bad games in a row.
All seems right with Prescott now, as he threw for over 300 yards and three touchdowns during the Cowboys’ big win. The area he was most impressive, was with those reads – specifically against the blitz.
On his first touchdown pass of the game, Dak Prescott beats the blitz perfectly. Just before snapping the ball, Prescott notices the safety roll down into the box. You can see him subtly move his arm to point out the safety, while calling it out to his linemen as well.
As soon as he gets the snap, Dak knows exactly where to go. The Giants tried to beat him with a delayed safety blitz, but once that safety comes, Prescott knows he has Dez Bryant in man coverage on the perimeter.
His eyes immediately snap that way, and his throw replaces the blitzer quickly. This allows Bryant to do the rest, and the Cowboys to tie the game.
Later in the game we see more of the same from Dak Prescott. With the game tied at 10 the Cowboys faced a critical third down backed up in their own territory. The Giants once again show blitz, bring the blitz, and Dak burns them for it.
The Giants show man coverage across the board pre-snap, with safety Landon Collins on the near hash. Cole Beasley is in the near-slot, and while he technically has a man over him directly, the Giants show 2-over-1 in the slot pre-snap. This usually tips off a blitz, as the Giants plan to bring their slot defender off the edge, and allow Landon Collins to cover Beasley one on one.
Prescott notices this pre-snap once again, and makes the defense pay. He quickly replaces the blitzer with his throw, allowing Beasley to make the easy catch underneath and then do the rest after the catch.
This may not seem all the difficult to do to those analyzing the game the next morning, but these reads indicate high level quarterback-ing from the Cowboys’ franchise leader, Dak Prescott.
Last season against the Giants, their defense was able to bring more than the Cowboys could block on key third downs a few times. Too often, Prescott and the passing offense could not beat those blitzes.
That was not the case this week at all.
3 biggest developments for the Cowboys this season:
3) Carson Wentz goes down
2) Demarcus Lawrence starts serious whoop @ss of ROT’s
1) Dak plays through his first pro downturn and bounces right back
So yep, Dak’s resurgence is the best thing of the year so far. He hit the slump a QB will hit, when he has poor pass blocking & poor route running. But we knew he was poised and wise beyond his age and would work out of it.
Last 2 games / 118.59 rating. 5 TD’s, 0 INT’s, 68 points
So while it looked for 3 games that maybe he was a QB who could not win without a dominant RB behind him, Dak has blown that theory up the last 2 games. Success in the NFL is about adversity and how players handle it. We just found out what Dak does with it. If the Cowboys close this year contending, this is going to be a formidable player next year.
Lawrence is probably cashing his year in and leaving in FA. But he could not have been a more positive example for Charlton and his path forward. And we found out as well that Irving does not have to play LDE to dominate.
Philly wins the East and loses possibly the best player in the league this year. They have a dream backup who has won in the NFL, but this opens the barn door in the conference. They may not have anything to play for in 3 weeks, allowing Dallas to notch that W because their starters are all sitting.
If Dallas can run the table and get in, it might end up playing in Philly or LA – teams it has seen and prepared for this year. The Cowboys get Zeke back soon and are alive with a chance to not only make the playoffs, but advance in them. They have to keep elevating their game, but that might be what we saw with chips on the table in the 2nd half yesterday.