Tag: Dallas Cowboys vs Buffalo Bills

Bennett’s fiery tirade to Cowboys warns of ‘the enemy against greatness’

Being with the Cowboys for just a month didn’t stop DE Michael Bennett from laying into his teammates after their Thanksgiving day loss.

It’s often said that a football team, over time, inevitably takes on the personality of its head coach. Save for a few notable exceptions, most members of the Dallas Cowboys sound in media interviews a lot like coach Jason Garrett. They’re measured in their responses. They don’t reveal a lot of meaty information. They don’t engage in speculation or hyperbole or a lot of self-congratulations. Win or lose, up or down, they sound pretty much the same. They’re often uninteresting, even flat-out boring.

So it went over like a miniature firestorm when it hit social media in the moments following the Cowboys’ limp performance against Buffalo- in their home stadium, in front of a nationwide audience, on their traditional holiday- that somebody behind the closed doors of the team’s locker room was going off. Very loudly and rather emphatically.

It was reported shortly thereafter that defensive end Michael Bennett, with the club for only a month, was the one who lit up his new teammates.

Afterward, many of them were asked about the moment, which had been audible throughout many of the tunnels underneath AT&T Stadium.

“That’s passion,” receiver Randall Cobb told media members. “That’s passion. We love this game; we want to win ball games. We’re not coming out here to lose ball games. Unfortunately, it goes that way sometimes. That’s just passion. I think it was a great message, and I think it was well-received.”

“Emotional locker room,” quarterback Dak Prescott said in his postgame press conference. “Just an exchange of words about us sticking together. Anything and everything outside of that locker room doesn’t matter. Simple as that.”

As for the specifics of what Bennett told the team, his fellow players felt it wasn’t for them to say.

“We’re not going to get into that,” Cobb stated. “What happens in this locker room stays in this locker room.”

But Bennett himself revealed some of the themes of his impassioned speech and why he felt it was necessary for him to speak up, even as a newcomer among a collection of high-profile superstars.

“Because it’s important that we understand that it’s a small window that we have,” Bennett said, as per Michael Gehlken of The Dallas Morning News. “We’ve got all the great players. The only thing we’ve got to do is execute in adversity. The enemy against greatness is the unwillingness to change. We’ve got to be able to change some of the things that we’ve been doing to demand more from ourselves and become the people we want to be.

“Every opportunity is in front of us, but it’s just on us to capitalize. To win, you’ve got to sacrifice a lot. It’s going to hurt. It’s painful. You play through injury, but you do it because you have to. To win that championship, to win that [Vince] Lombardi [Trophy], there’s no feeling like that. And that takes a lot.”

Bennett, an 11-year veteran who’s spent time on four different teams before being traded to Dallas from New England after just six games, won a Super Bowl ring with Seattle following the 2013 season. His perspective as a champion makes him the rarest of commodities on the current Cowboys roster.

“The champions are the people that get remembered,” Bennett said when asked about his speech, according to Gehlken. “They don’t remember who got the biggest contract. A whole bunch of great players got great contracts, but they don’t get remembered as champions. Champions are the ones who get the gold plates and the jackets and they understand what it takes to win. That’s just a certain mind-set. That’s just a certain ability to play tough in adverse moments.”

Bennett’s words seemed to hit home for his new teammates in Dallas after their Thursday night debacle.

“It’s all about the men in this room,” edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence offered. “Looking each other in the eye, looking each other in the mirror and really making that turn about what they really want in this life and what they want out of this career and out of this game.”

Even immediately after a demoralizing loss that has fans calling for their coach’s head, Bennett’s address created a sense of optimism heading into the final quarter of the schedule.

“No one’s down on themselves,” defensive lineman Robert Quinn said in his postgame comments. “Guys know what’s at stake. But we’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror come tomorrow- or tonight, actually, I should say- and see what we can do better… We got four games left, we still got a shot. No need to hang your head. So let’s get it fixed.”

“No belief has been lost,” Prescott echoed. “No confidence has been lost. This is simply execution. This is on players. That’s kind of what that conversation was. Credit the leaders, credit Michael Bennett, those guys that started that. It was a great conversation, lot of great words passed. But it’s all about us executing and just getting the job done. Starts throughout the week about us just doing things better.”

Owner Jerry Jones had been the vocal one in the media all week, after calls for Garrett’s job increased to deafening levels following the squad’s Week 12 loss to the Patriots. But Jones, much like the head coach he’s defended for a decade, has opted for a calm and measured approach in dealing with both his coach and his players.

“If I had thought that calling somebody out or going in there and giving them a Knute Rockne talk would have made any difference as to how we execute or how we do,” Jones told reporters, “then I’d bottle that and sell it to a lot of different places. That’s not the way this thing works.”

Sometimes, though, it is the way this thing works. Sometimes a team needs a fiery Knute Rockne speech. Sometimes a dressing-down at maximum volume is exactly what the situation calls for. But Jones is right: coming from the billionaire owner, it falls flat. Coming from a head coach who is practically expected to lose his job, it feel’s disingenuous. Coming from a player who’s never held a Lombardi Trophy, it’s just talk. Maybe Michael Bennett was the only guy in that room who could provide that spark. Maybe that’s part of the reason the Cowboys went out and got him mid-season.

The last four games of 2019 will reveal whether Bennett’s spark actually lit a fire under this Cowboys team.

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Jerry Jones: ‘Zero chance’ at storybook ending to 2019 if Garrett fired

There’s an old trick that authors use when writing a work of fiction. At any given moment, in almost any situation, the idea is to make things as difficult as possible. Make the challenges bigger. Make the outlook bleaker. Make the circumstances …

There’s an old trick that authors use when writing a work of fiction. At any given moment, in almost any situation, the idea is to make things as difficult as possible. Make the challenges bigger. Make the outlook bleaker. Make the circumstances more dire. Give the hero more to overcome along the way than seems even possible, and it makes the victory that much sweeter and more satisfying in the end.

The Dallas Cowboys are still working on the story of their 2019 season. Their Thanksgiving Day meltdown at the hands of the Bills will certainly go down as one of its darkest chapters. But owner Jerry Jones is optimistic that there could be a plot twist coming on the very next page, and that this team has a surprise ending waiting in the wings.

“Adversity gives you an opportunity to really write a hell of a story about how to come back,” Jones said after the 26-15 loss.

But judging by Jones’s postgame comments, he is not willing to go so far as to kill off one of his major characters. Despite a tenure defined by mediocrity and punctuated by countless head-scratching decisions, coach Jason Garrett, who has led a seemingly-talent-laden team to six losses in their last nine games, will remain in place.

“This is not the time,” Jones said of a possible coaching change with four games left in the regular season. “For me, I’m looking ahead at another ballgame, and I’m looking ahead at winning four or five straight and helping write a story that they’ll talk about, how it looked like you were down and out and got it done. And I mean that. I mean that. That’s the way that I’m operating. Every decision that I make over the next month will be with an eye and mind to get us in the Super Bowl now.”

Cowboys players echoed that optimism, even if a story that ends in this roster and coaching staff ripping off a four-game win streak feels like pure science fiction.

“We know what we need to do,” linebacker Jaylon Smith told reporters after the loss. “Four games left, and winning is the name of the game.”

“We feel real good about our chances,” running back Ezekiel Elliott told the media afterward. “We feel really good about what we have in store for the rest of the season.”

As bad as the Cowboys looked hosting their traditional holiday contest, the team didn’t lose any ground in their chase of a divisional crown. Still clinging to a better record than the Eagles but with a more difficult slate of opponents ahead, Dallas players feel they need to win out in order to claim the NFC East and make the postseason.

“We can still win our division and go to the playoffs,” cornerback Jourdan Lewis said after the game. “That’s what it is. Of course, we wanted to win this one, but at the same time, we’ve got to look forward and do our best to get to the playoffs.”

“We know we can do that because we control our destiny,” quarterback Dak Prescott said from the podium in his postgame press conference. “We control the work that we put in, we control how we approach each and every day, we control the way that we prepare to get ready for these games. I have so much confidence in the men in that locker room, the character that they have, and I wouldn’t want to be, honestly, in this position with anybody else except those men. so confident in what we’re going to do.”

Prescott has spent months praising the character of the men in the locker room and expressing confidence in what they’re going to do. Problem is, they’ve only done it against bad teams. Thursday’s beatdown by Buffalo was just the latest dismal showing against the exact kind of quality opponent that Dallas would see should they qualify for postseason play.

The result was an embarrassing loss that left recently-added defensive end Michael Bennett screaming at his new teammates in the locker room.

“It was very disappointing,” wideout Amari Cooper told the press, “just with everything that’s at stake, where we are in the season. A loss in general is just very disappointing, but to lose in this fashion with where we are is just devastating.”

“We’re definitely in the low of this season,” receiver Randall Cobb said in postgame interviews, “but the bright side is we’ve got four games to go. And anything can happen in those four weeks, and we kind of control our own destiny at this point.”

“We’re just pissed,” Elliott summed up. “We’re pissed at how we’ve let this season go. But the good thing about it is we control our own future. We’ve just got to find a way to go out there and win the rest of these games.”

“All it takes is winning one game and getting the thing rolling,” Cobb offered hopefully.

What it won’t take to get things rolling, according to the man who writes the checks? A Week 14 firing of his head coach.

“I wouldn’t make a change and give us a chance to do what I want to dream about doing,” Jones said. “I wouldn’t do that for love nor money. I’d give us zero chance if we did that.”

“He understands it,” Prescott said of the club’s impassioned owner. “He understands that we need everybody in that locker room- players, coaches, everybody that’s a part of it- to get to where we want to be.”

Fans may have soured long ago on Garrett’s maddeningly-even-keeled style and are understandably frustrated by the the lackluster results he’s getting from his players. But Jones isn’t ready to give up on Garrett, with whom he’s had a relationship since even before he joined the Cowboys as a practice squad player in 1992.

“I know Jason very well,” Jones said. “I’ve had a wonderful opportunity to spend a football life with him, so I know him very well.”

But sometimes an author can get too attached to his longstanding hero. And no conflict is too great that there isn’t hope that the hero can rise to the challenge and overcome the odds, no matter how improbable.

After a thoroughly gutting Thanksgiving Day plot twist, Jones is still thinking about how the 2019 disaster epic currently being penned in Dallas can get its storybook ending:

“The way that I’m going to handle this is encourage everybody to basically look to the possibility of winning out and end up doing something that people will write about 30 years from now and being a part of that. I like that story tonight as I eat my turkey.”

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Cowboys’ Connor Williams exits, backup immediately shows why he’s one

Dallas Cowboys guard Connor Williams suffers injury in the second quarter of the Thanksgiving match-up with the Buffalo Bills.

Dallas Cowboys second year guard Connor Williams has been helped off the field with just over four minutes left in the first half.

The injury took place on a run by Ezekiel Elliott where Williams had his legs rolled up on by fellow offensive lineman Zack Martin.

Williams returned to action last week after missing a game due to a knee injury that required surgery. His replacement, guard Xavier Su’a-Filo, allowed a sack that resulted in a fumble by quarterback Dak Prescott just two plays later.

The score remains tied at seven but Prescott and the Cowboys have turned the ball over twice.

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Even Jason Garrett can use these analytics showing who the Bills really are

A look into how the Bills have accomplished their 8-3 record, whether it’s fool’s gold or legitimate, and what Josh Allen is doing so well.

Despite it being the week of Thanksgiving, Sunday’s result didn’t leave Cowboys fans with a feeling of gratitude. The field became a quagmire in the midst of a nasty rainstorm, and it made life difficult for both quarterbacks and offenses. To this point in the season, the Dallas offense has been more reliant on Dak Prescott’s ability to make plays, and thus the weather better served the New England defense as it mitigated Prescott’s potential impact.

Games like Sunday’s contest demonstrate the importance of having every possible edge a team can find. Uncontrollable elements like the weather can level a matchup in unexpected ways, and thus its important to maximize the value of your own decision-making. In light of this loss, and perhaps with the rise of the Baltimore Ravens, Jason Garrett has come under scrutiny for the lack of usage of analytics in the team’s decision-making. Baltimore is the latest team to grab headlines for this usage, but New England has been at the forefront for the majority of their dynastic run and now Dallas will face another analytically-inclined franchise in the Buffalo Bills.

Buffalo comes to town holding an 8-3 record, and the top Wild-Card spot in the AFC. Due to historic-level production, the New England and San Francisco defenses have garnered the attention of most headlines. But the Buffalo defense has played a significant role in their record to this point.

The truth, however, is that they’ve likely benefited from some weaker offenses.

Here we see the EPA per play that a defense has allowed (Y-axis) vs the EPA per play the offenses generated against other teams (X-axis).

The idea is to compare a team’s defensive production against their quality of competition.

And as you can see, Buffalo’s opponents have been quite abysmal overall. In fairness, Buffalo has performed well against those opponents. But its safe to say that their defense has been largely untested. The Dallas offense should theoretically give a better indication of what Buffalo’s defense is capable of achieving.

Because their opponents have been so appalling, it’s hard to glean what’s real from Buffalo’s defensive statistics. However, a player worth noting is cornerback Tre’Davious White and his lock-down potential.

According to Pro-Football-Reference, White has allowed a 47.9 passer rating on passes his way, ranked second among all cornerbacks. He’s a player who’s shown the capability of shadowing a team’s top wide receiver, so it should be interesting to see how Buffalo chooses to deploy him.

On the opposite side of the ball, it’s hard not to talk about the Buffalo Bills without talking about their young quarterback, Josh Allen. It seems fitting Allen comes to town in a week where analytics was featured as a prominent discussion point. Entering last year’s draft, Allen was the prototypical case in skills vs stats. From a physical standpoint, it’s hard not to be wowed by his talent, as he blends an unprecedented amount of arm strength and mobility. Despite this though, things never quite came together at Wyoming, and many wondered whether Allen’s physical tools would translate to success on the NFL field.

Allen put these physical tools on display immediately as a rookie, but we also saw his rawness play a role. That said, Allen’s development as a quarterback is rather impressive when you observe his Next-Gen passing charts from 2018 and 2019.

In his rookie campaign, it was clear how much Allen believed in his arm, as he routinely attacked downfield, and found great success attacking the seams. He did, however, struggle to attack the perimeter of the field. But in 2019, we see Allen utilizing the entire field, without really sacrificing much of his downfield shots. It’s almost downright laughable that Allen has the ability to uncork a pass to any point on this chart. As a defense, it means having to defend every level on a given play, and can prove costly if there’s a lapse in focus.

Arm strength of Allen’s caliber is certainly rare, but it’s the combination of strength and mobility that truly sets Allen apart. Common sense would dictate players should be keenly aware of their strengths, and stick to those as much as possible. This is certainly the case with Allen, as no quarterback has relied more heavily on his legs this year.

The chart above shows that about 12% of Allen’s successful plays have come due to his rushing ability, while about 9% of his dropbacks resulted in a scramble overall. While Allen has shown development as a passer, he still likes to use his legs, and can certainly do so if unaccounted for by the defense.

Buffalo’s schedule to this point may have inflated their overall record, but they’re still dangerous enough to cause trouble for a team, especially on a short week. Dallas will need to regroup quickly if they hope to avoid an unpleasant Thanksgiving. But with a holiday game, the eyes of America will be tuned in, and that presents a unique opportunity for Dak Prescott to vault forward in the MVP discussion.

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Final Week 13 Injury Report rules 2 Cowboys defenders, 1 Bills OL out

The Cowboys will once again need to plug-and-play on the defensive side of the ball as the Front 7 will be missing two starters.

On a short week, no one knows how player’s bodies are going to respond to just being on the field less than 100 hours prior to a Thursday kickoff. Dallas players know the grind well as they spend more time in the league, and that familiarity is a primary complaint to those who want the Cowboys to be in the Thanksgiving roration like the other 30 teams not named them or the Detroit Lions.

This particular year though, the recovery time is as paramount as ever for the Cowboys, who are in desperate need of a home win against a quality opponent as the Buffalo Bills (8-3) invade AT&T Stadium. Dallas (6-6) needs a win in the worst way and they will have to do so without two of their defensive starters.

Defensive tackle Antwaun Woods and linebacker Leighton Vander Esch have both been ruled out on the final injury report of the week.

As for the Bills, they’ve ruled out only backup offensive lineman Ty Nsekhe.

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