The Dallas Cowboys walked out of the Hall of Fame game with a 1-0 preseason record last night, defeating the Arizona Cardinals 20-18.
After falling behind 15-0 early, wide receiver Brice Butler came up with two huge catches to help put the Cowboys back in scoring range, and back in the game.
His second big play came on a diving catch, and was potentially the play of the night.
It seems like Brice Butler heard the rumblings that these young wide-outs were gunning for his job, because he absolutely balled on Thursday.
Hopefully we see more of this from Butler throughout the year.
If he can keep making plays like he did last night, Twill, might just have to worry about his job.
Never bought the idea Butler was even with the rookie WR picks. Taller, faster, already made big plays in the NFL. Williams will be lucky if Butler does not pass him this year.
While Butler was great, IMO your winners in this game are Gathers & Moore.
So that is a big positive. Gathers not only took a ball away from the defender on the goal line, he had a shoestring catch from Rush, went to the ground untouched, realized it, got up and broke a tackle for a big gain. That’s a lot to get from a project TE.
Blocking: somebody needs to grade Gathers blocking last night, I haven’t been able to go back to study it.
Being a CBB power forward he is used to contact, blocking out, etc. It might be a work in progress, or maybe he has it already.
What I saw was more speed than advertised, and a trim-looking player for somebody 280 lbs. I thought he’d be an Eric Green mold of TE, but this looks more agile, maybe can run deep routes.
Moore: I’d say 7 of 10. And that’s a lot better than stinking up the field after that long away. Last played December 2015.
Arm: not weak. Not afraid to go deep. He has to set his legs and loft it to go deep. It worked to Butler, but the 2nd one was intercepted. You’d figure that worked better in college, and that NFL DB’s have too much time to close if a ball is lofted. So I would want him looking for a breakout deep receiver like he did with Butler, but don’t throw those unless it is clearly open.
Got outside the pocket a bit, looks slower at it IMO. That would figure after the leg injury. I don’t know it the scramble agility comes back. I know he reads the play quickly and finds the open man.
No objections right now to Moore as a backup. If the game is decided, Dak should sit ASAP so Moore can get regular season snaps.