The Cowboys led the NFL in penalties in 2021. After vowing to make it a point of emphasis in the offseason, they went out and racked up 17 flags in their very first preseason contest. Coaches pledged to keep working at it over the remainder of camp.
On Sunday night, to start the 2022 regular schedule, they brought the total down… but only to 10.
It’s been an ongoing problem. The Cowboys have drawn double-digit penalties five times in the team’s last seven outings (including the 2022 preseason and 2021 playoffs) and in six out of their last 12 contests, dating back to their 14-flag laundryfest against Las Vegas on Thanksgiving Day.
“Too many penalties,” tight end Dalton Schultz admitted after Sunday’s 19-3 loss to Tampa Bay to open the new season. “It felt like every time we got something rolling, one penalty happened, and it set us back. We were just beating ourselves. It was over and over. It was all throughout the game. It’s stuff that can be fixed. I don’t know how many false starts we had, but that [expletive] is just easy fundamental football.”
Four is the answer, Dalton. The Cowboys were flagged for four false starts.
And three of them belonged to Terence Steele, the offensive tackle that the Cowboys cut La’el Collins in favor of.
“I had three pre-snap penalties,” Steele confessed to reporters Sunday night. “It’s inexcusable. That’s something you can’t have. Coach puts a big emphasis on that. That’s definitely something I’m going to have to work on in the future.”
Zack Martin thinks the third-year lineman will make the necessary corrections.
“It’s tough,” the guard said. “He puts a lot of that on his shoulders, and obviously, it is something we have to clean up. I know what kind of guy Terence Steele is, and I know he’ll come right back to work and fix it and move forward.”
The Dallas offensive line was guilty of six of the Cowboys’ 10 infractions versus the Buccaneers. In addition to his trio of false starts, Steele was also caught once for holding. Tyler Biadasz drew an illegal-man-downfield flag, and rookie Tyler Smith was called for a false start of his own.
“You’re not going to win every rep,” the left tackle said of his first NFL start. “Sometimes you might mess up, sometimes you might get a flag, but you’ve just got to keep going for sure.”
All of this, despite repeated efforts by the team to work more closely with officials during the offseason in an attempt to be more disciplined on gameday. But it didn’t work on Sunday, the latest example of what one ESPN analyst termed “a Mike McCarthy issue” over the summer.
“Just two steps forward and one step back,” according to Martin. “We have to tighten up on the penalties, obviously.”
Yes, obviously.
It’s been obvious for a long time, and it doesn’t seem to be improving.
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