2023 Week 15 – Syndication Server

3 major takeaways from Week 15 for Cowboys to work on

Dallas needs to diagnose what went wrong in the Bills loss and what they can take away from it going into their playoff run. | From @cdpiglet

For the third time this season, a team executed a game plan to beat the Dallas Cowboys and do it handily. After a few big misses early from Dallas, the Buffalo Bills settled in, ran the ball down the throat of the defense, and controlled the game. That has been the theme of attacking Dan Quinn’s unit successfully.

The Bills played back on defense, allowing Dallas to run the ball or throw underneath but eliminating deep shots. Buffalo primarily sent only four rushers, keeping seven defenders back in quarterback Dak Prescott’s throwing lanes. This is the same type of plan that the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers employed in their victories over the Cowboys.

Many of the major takeaways from this game have been chronic issues, but the team must again see what they can do to get better at stopping opponents from executing these strategies. The playoffs are upcoming, and how well they clean up these deficiencies could be crucial to the type of playoff run they go on.

Momentum Dependent: What we learned about the Cowboys in Week 15

People shouldn’t overreact to what the Cowboys showed in Buffalo in Week 15 because their true identity is more complicated than one game. | From @ReidDHanson

Famous 20^th-century philosopher Michael Gerard Tyson probably said it best when he plainly stated, “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Tyson, a savant of fisticuffs and the most feared pugilist of his generation, spoke from experience. Not as the man with the plan, but rather the puncher, hellbent on destroying said plan.

In Week 15 against the Bills, the Cowboys found themselves on the receiving end of that prose. And like the man with the plan in which Tyson once spoke, everything fell apart once that first punch landed on their jaw.

In a game which was eerily similar to the Week 5 disaster in San Francisco, things got ugly fast in Buffalo and all of the Cowboys’ presumed strategy flew right out the window the moment the first punch landed. Dallas played timidly on both sides of the ball. The game plan was a mess; game management was nonexistent. The offensive line couldn’t protect the QB, the QB couldn’t find the WRs, the defense couldn’t tackle, run fits weren’t filled, foolish penalties ruled the day, and effort was shamefully absent.

The Bills scored touchdowns on three of their first four drives and at no point did it appear Dallas was up to the task. The game would end with a score of 31-10 but to those who watched, it likely felt far, far worse.

Cowboys Twitter reactions after Eagles schaudenfreude loss to Seahawks

No need to pretend, Cowboys fans enjoyed turning the tables back on the Eagles as the trash talking resumes.

It was all good just a day ago. Dallas’ Week 14 blowout win of the Eagles to wrestle the NFC East lead away from Philadelphia, even if through temporary tiebreakers, sent their fanbase frothing. Nine months of trash talk based on going to (and losing) the Super Bowl was relentless from the fan base. On Twitter, their fans and content creators spent more time discussing Dallas’ shortcomings than paying attention to their own opponents.

The foot-eating began with their blowout loss to the 49ers, and they refused to even come on line after Dallas’ 33-13 win. But when the Cowboys were blown out in Buffalo to end their five-game winning streak, all the Eagles fans crawled out from under their rocks to gloat.

Not so fast my friend.

The Eagles went into Seattle, which had lost four in a row themselves, and found the losing end of a last-second comeback. As a result, Cowboys fans were certainly in the mood to throw the trash talk back in Eagles’ fans faces. Hilarity ensued.

Studs and Duds: Cowboys demoralized by Bills, 31-10 in frustrating performance

There weren’t enough good performances from the Dallas Cowboys in their crushing 31-10 defeat to the Buffalo Bills in Week 15. | From @BenGrimaldi

Getting pushed around and demoralized isn’t a feeling the Dallas Cowboys have felt often during the 2023 season, but that’s exactly how the team looked in the 31-10 blowout loss to the Buffalo Bills. Most of the year it’s been the Cowboys handing out the beatdowns, yet that wasn’t the case in Week 15.

Just seven days after the Cowboys manhandled their division rivals, they folded like a cheap beach chair against the Bills. Dan Quinn’s defense was punched in the mouth and never got up off the mat in another embarrassing loss on the road.

If Mike McCarthy’s team was trying to show they could hang with a good team away from AT&T Stadium, they failed once again. The Cowboys played poorly in all three phases and got their butts whipped in the process. Here are the studs and duds from a sobering loss in Buffalo.

Instant Analysis: Lack of discipline, awareness lead Cowboys to embarrassing loss to Bills

The Cowboys winning streak is over at five, and now the questions about how they’ll fare come playoff time will begin. | From @KDDrummondNFL

The Dallas Cowboys were absolutely embarrassed on Sunday, out-toughed by the Buffalo Bills. But it was their own mistakes that knocked the road team out of contention in an ugly first half, not the opponent’s punching them in the mouth. Penalties that extended drives and stalled their own, and not being aware of their surroundings led to a 21-3 halftime deficit, their worst of the season.

And when the Cowboys weren’t able to score to close out the first half or start the second, it was pretty much all she wrote. The Cowboys entered the game with a five-game winning streak overall and 21 in a row on artificial turf, but none of that translated to a competent performance in Week 15. Instead the club that had been red hot has the same questions that have haunted them resurface. Can Dallas win on the road against good teams? It doesn’t seem like they know how, as they fell to the Bills 31-10.

Dallas’ clinched a playoff berth before they took the field Sunday, thanks to other results. However they have many more doubts now then they did before now that they are 10-4 and likely out of the rae for the NFC East title and the No. 1 seed in the conference.

Cowboys guard Zack Martin suffers leg injury vs Bills

The Cowboys’ top lineman left the game in the first quarter after getting hit in the leg while blocking.

Update: Zack Martin has been ruled out for the remainder of the game.

Zack Martin took a shot to the knee pic.twitter.com/0xdfdh6cpI

— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) December 17, 2023

This has been a disjointed affair thus far for the Dallas Cowboys. Their trip to Buffalo saw their defense get marched down the field on the opening drive and two offensive possessions that end in punts. The most concerning thing though is that right guard and perennial All-Pro Zack Martin left the game during that second possession after getting hit in the leg.

Martin went into the the blue medical tent for further evaluation. Reports say when he returned from the tent he was still being worked on, on the sideline.

After several minutes, Cowboys RG Zack Martin has exited the sideline medical tent, walking very gingerly on sideline. He is still receiving treatment on his left knee.

— Michael Gehlken (@GehlkenNFL) December 17, 2023

Cowboys clinch playoff spot before taking field against Bills

The Cowboys have earned their third consecutive playoff berth.

The Dallas Cowboys have a lot of work to do in order to secure their sixth Lombardi trophy. Winners of five in a row as they enter their Week 15 contest withthe Buffalo Bills, the team is looking to prove their worth with a road win over another championship contender. It would be great if they could somehow hold onto the NFC East No. 1 spot over the next month, and even better if they could somehow take over the pole position in the conference.

But the first step in all of that is making the playoffs, and now they’ve officially done that. Thanks to the results from the games before their kickoff, Dallas has done so. The combination of the Atlanta Falcons losing to the Carolina Panthers, the Green Bay Packers losing to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Detroit’s Saturday night win over Denver brings Dallas their third consecutive playoff berth.

Week 15 Inactives: Cowboys’ Hankins, Hooker out, Gilmore and Cooks to play

The Cowboys are battling through illness, with the pair of Brandin Cooks and Stephon Gilmore active while Malik Hooker is out. | From @cdburnett7

Illness is the Dallas Cowboys’ biggest threat as of late, and it’s lingered into Week 15 against the Buffalo Bills. Cornerback Stephon Gilmore and wide receiver Brandin Cooks were listed as questionable as the flu raged through the team, but both are active for a chilly matchup in Highmark Stadium.

The biggest loss for Dallas is defensive tackle Jonathan Hankins, who suffered an ankle sprain against the Eagles. Rookie first-round pick Mazi Smith will be tasked with an increased role in his absence. Safety Malik Hooker is out as the illness got around to him.

For the Bills, star safety Micah Hyde is out with a neck stinger. He’s an anchor for the Buffalo defense and backup defensive end AJ Epenesa is also out.

Both teams are battling through injuries on defense, and this game holds heavy playoff implications. Take a look at the full list of inactives ahead of Cowboys-Bills at 3:25 p.m., televised on FOX.

Turf Monsters: Cowboys unnatural surface dominance among streaks, milestones, record watch

The Cowboys’ are built for speed and have the second-longest turf winning streak in NFL history on the line on Sunday. | From @KDDrummondNFL

Last week, the Cowboys earned their 10th win if the season and for the first time since the mid-90s, they’ve won double-digit games in three straight years.

Mike McCarthy has accomplished what Jason Garrett, Wade Phillips nor even the great Bill Parcells could not. And he’s done it by assembling a team that is lean, athletic and built for speed. So much so they Dallas has now won an amazing 21 straight games on artificial turf.

It’s the second-longest streak in NFL history, according to Stathead (they list 20, but haven’t reclassified Carolina’s Bank of America Stadium since it changed in 2021). Dallas will get a chance to extend that streak on Sunday as their Week 15 opponent, the Buffalo Bills, play on turf as well. This is among a myriad of streaks, milestones and records in play this weekend.