Mike McCarthy said he wanted to run the damn ball this year, and Mother Nature gave him a good excuse to do so on opening night.
The Cowboys’ first game of the season was a soggy affair in the Meadowlands, but the rain didn’t seem to put any sort of damper on the Dallas offense in its first official outing with McCarthy calling the plays. A ground-heavy game plan saw the Cowboys run the ball 30 times compared to just 25 throws. More important, though, were the three rushing touchdowns that contributed to the team’s 40-0 routing of the divisional rival Giants.
Tony Pollard logged 70 yards on 14 carries, finding the end zone twice. Rico Dowdle, KaVontae Turpin, and Deuce Vaughn had another 15 carries split among them; quarterback Dak Prescott had a run of his own in a deliberately-diversified ground attack.
“I loved what we were calling on offense,” said Pollard in his first game as the Cowboys’ lead back. “I loved the flow of everything, how everything was going.”
For Pollard, it was also his first action since suffering a fractured fibula and high ankle sprain in January’s playoff loss. After a night that included a 25-yard pickup and also a 12-yard run, both Pollard and his head coach felt confident that he was fully back and ready to pick up where he left off after his first 1,000-yard campaign last year.
“You could really feel Tony the last couple weeks, like in the 9-on-7s and the team runs. So you knew he was back,” McCarthy told reporters in his postgame press conference. “I thought he did some really good things.”
“I felt great out there,” Pollard agreed. “I felt I could have had a little bit more. I’m ready to keep going, keep getting better as we keep going into the season.”
But McCarthy was also mindful about getting others involved, including using Turpin, listed as a wide receiver and used primarily as a return man, for several backfield carries, one of which he blasted in for his first NFL touchdown.
Turpin Touchdown ✅
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“I wanted that. I had to get in there,” laughed the 153-pound Turpin about lowering his shoulder to get the score.
“I’m a playmaker; that’s what I came here to do. … I’m just glad they gave me a chance to come out here and take advantage of my opportunities.”
McCarthy has yet to really unleash the speedy Turpin as a receiver, but he hinted that he’s saving it for now, trying to keep opposing defenses guessing.
“I promise you we have some passes out of those personnels,” the coach told reporters. “It was a conscious effort just trying to get [Turpin] the football, and we definitely want to get Deuce involved, too. It’s a long year.”
Vaughn, the 5-foot-5-inch rookie, didn’t find much room to maneuver in his debut, gaining just eight yards on six tries, but he knows his time will be coming, too, in an offense that promises chances for everyone.
“It’s super exciting for us as an offense, for myself, for Turp. You saw Turp get in the end zone; that was big for him, especially being his first one,” Vaughn said at his locker after the win. “Having several packages, things like that, whenever my name is called, I’ll be ready to go, and I feel like it’s huge for our offense.”
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On the whole, the Cowboys offense didn’t have to be huge in their Big Apple visit. Seeing the special teams and defense get to the end zone before they did allowed McCarthy to play things very methodically on offense, and a stifling defense ensured that Prescott & Co. never had to press the issue in weather that, at times, was downright torrential.
But they proved ready for that, too.
“We did wet ball drills three times this week,” McCarthy explained. “We had the buckets out pre- and post-practice. And then [we] hit it again before we left Saturday. We were ready for it from a prep standpoint.”
Though he lost the handle on one ball, Pollard said the extra preparation “definitely helped.” And it will help later in the season when the conditions will become even more of a factor in places like Philadelphia and Buffalo.
“The weather isn’t always going to be on your side,” Pollard said.
The Cowboys looked plenty prepped for whatever the weatherman- and the Giants- had in store for them in Week 1.
And being prepared to handle the long haul is something Pollard says he and his teammates have been doing all spring and summer.
“The hard work that we put in is paying off, but it’s just one game,” Pollard added. “We’ve got a long way to go, so we’re just going to keep getting better.”
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