Tag: 2024 season week 5

‘One block away’: Cowboys vow to stick with current rushing attack despite lack of results

From @ToddBrock24f7: Hunter Luepke, Deuce Vaughn, and Tyler Guyton discuss the team’s approach to getting the Cowboys’ run game on track after a terrible start.

The Cowboys’ run game has done next to nothing this season. But to fix it, the team believes it needs to just continue with exactly what they’ve been doing.

Through four games, Dallas has a league-low 301 rushing yards, and a bottom-three mark of 3.5 yards per carry. The team’s leading rusher, Rico Dowdle, is averaging under 34 yards a game. No ground play all year has gone for more than 12 yards.

But don’t expect the team to drastically revamp its approach heading into Sunday’s visit to Pittsburgh, where a top-three run defense awaits.

“We’re one block away here, one block away there,” fullback Hunter Luepke said this week. “It’s just 11 guys working together. We’re close. We’re close. It’s going to break through one of these games.”

Deuce Vaughn agrees, saying the team needs to “keep chopping wood.”

“Coming in here and just working our butts off,” he continued. “Understand that one’s going to pop, and once it does and we start clicking … we’re going to get that confidence inside our room, inside the O-line room, and we’re going to run from there, no problem.”

This week will present a significant problem, though, and he wears No. 90 for the Steelers. Linebacker T.J. Watt is one of the most feared defenders in the game whether he’s trying to stop the run or the pass, and the Cowboys offensive line will have its hands full trying to frustrate him.

But it’s not a one-man show in Pittsburgh. Only two squads have allowed fewer rushing yards in 2024 than the Steelers. And they’re second-best leaguewide in yards-per-carry given up.

In other words, don’t expect a repeat of the 2016 classic in which Ezekiel Elliott piled up 114 ground yards in the Steel City, averaged 5.4 yards per tote, and ran in two touchdowns, including a 32-yard scamper in the final seconds to win the game.

This Sunday will present a tall challenge for the Dallas O-line. Like the committee of running backs they block for, the Cowboys front five maintains that sticking to their fundamentals will be the key.

“Just playing nasty,” offered rookie Tyler Guyton, “and hitting our landmarks the correct way.”

Cutting down on penalties will also help. The Cowboys are among the most-flagged teams in the NFL this season, and offensive holding is by far the biggest bugaboo (11 infractions against). Guyton himself accounts for five of those calls, leading the team.

He knows it has cost the team at inopportune moments, but he knows there’s still plenty of time to reverse course and get back on track.

“We’re four games in. I think we’re still building every single day, every play. I think we’re building toward something,” he told reporters. “I don’t think we’re at our best yet. We’re not, because I feel like I need to do better. And if I’m not at my best, then we’re not at our best. I think we all have improvements to make.”

[affiliatewidget_smgtolocal]

So the Cowboys look to keep pounding away with what they’ve been doing on the ground. A healthy mix of Dowdle and Elliott. A few change-of-pace carries for Vaughn. Keeping Dalvin Cook under wraps on the practice squad. Maybe an occasional jet sweep-type backfield play for CeeDee Lamb or KaVontae Turpin. Even deploying backfield options like Luepke into the passing game. (He has twice as many receptions this season as Jalen Brooks.)

Whatever it takes for the team to succeed. Even if it’s not pretty. Even if the conventional rushing attack is stuck in neutral.

These Cowboys will keep at it.

“It’s all about the team winning on Sunday, so it doesn’t matter how many catches I have or whatever,” Luepke said. “If we don’t get it done, it doesn’t mean anything. A win’s more important than anything, in my opinion.”

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

[mm-video type=video id=01j97rnpf78x5d39khs1 playlist_id=01eqbwens7sctqdrqg player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01j97rnpf78x5d39khs1/01j97rnpf78x5d39khs1-e8200a6ab62cad2a51c733129211f173.jpg]

[lawrence-newsletter]

‘Figured myself invincible’: Micah Parsons coming to grips with likelihood of sitting out Week 5

From @ToddBrock24f7: Parsons may miss his first game ever due to injury, although he’s trying to return as quickly as possible. It doesn’t look good for Sunday.

Heading into the Cowboys’ Week 4 game in New York, linebacker Micah Parsons was trying to avoid the first three-game losing streak in his football life.

Now he’s staring down a prospective barrel that upsets him even more.

The superstar defender, wearing a protective boot and using a scooter around The Star on Monday, seems hard-pressed to play this Sunday when the Cowboys visit Pittsburgh. If he has to sit due to the high-ankle sprain he suffered late in last Thursday’s win over the Giants, it will- incredibly- be the first game Parsons has ever missed, at any level, because of injury.

Parsons isn’t yet ready to concede.

“When you’re a real competitor, you only get 17 chances at this,” Parsons said, per Todd Archer of ESPN. “And missing one of these opportunities to perform at the highest level bothers me. I feel like I want to play on Sunday. If I can play, I will play, you know. To me, as long as I can run and move how I move, I want to play.”

Parsons is officially considered week-to-week, but the more realistic outlook points to him having to sit for at least one or even two games, considering Dallas has a bye after that.

“It’s just frustrating, for real,” he said, as reported by the team website. “You put a lot of energy into getting ready and being there for the team, so being out, this hurts me because I’m letting people down. I’m just letting people down. I figured myself invincible for a while.”

But the two-time All-Pro isn’t in total denial about his current prognosis. And he’s well aware that rushing back before his body is ready could mean a re-injury… and an even longer absence.

“It’s just going to come down to how I’m attacking this and getting right with Jim [Maurer, head trainer], and getting ahead of this, so that way I can get back as fast as possible. I’m just trying to get back as fast as possible, but I don’t want it to linger.”

[affiliatewidget_smgtolocal]

The 25-year-old was held out of a game during his rookie season due to COVID protocol, but he says being sidelined with an actual injury is a new experience.

“Never,” said the three-time Pro Bowler. “Never in my whole life. I’ve never missed a game. I’ve played hurt and through pain, so, to me, playing through hurt isn’t really the problem.”

But that does seem to be the way things are looking, and not just to Parsons.

“He’ll be challenged to play this week. We’re preparing to play without him,” head coach Mike McCarthy said of Parsons to media members Monday.

“It’s definitely the unfortunate part of our game… It takes a lot of players to win in this league. Creates a great opportunity for others; that’s definitely our approach.”

So while Parsons may not lead his defensive teammates onto the field in Pittsburgh, he’s already started leading them in the week’s preparation.

“It’s time to man up,” said Parsons. “We talk about next-man-up mentality? It’s time.”

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

[mm-video type=video id=01j90fq3g11v93k8w909 playlist_id=01eqbwens7sctqdrqg player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01j90fq3g11v93k8w909/01j90fq3g11v93k8w909-e4741318fb6e239e711479de26b28d6c.jpg]

[lawrence-newsletter]