Tag: Dallas Cowboys vs Denver Broncos

Cowboys Report Card, Snap Counts: Who played, and who played well are 2 different things

Don’t tell mom, but the babysitter let the kids stay up too late and didn’t make them study. The Cowboys failed their midterms and dropped to 6-2. Position grades on deck. | From @Zeke_Barrera

The Dallas Cowboys saw their six-game win streak snapped at the hands of the Denver Broncos, who extended their own win streak over Dallas to seven games. It was a beatdown reminiscent of their last matchup in Week 2 of the 2017 season, where the Cowboys were walloped seemingly out of nowhere in Denver, 42-17.

For whatever the reason, it just wasn’t the Cowboys day, with several of their key players having off-games and their typical aggressive play style working against them. Safe to say, this week’s report card won’t be hanging on any refrigerators, and will likely be have to be returned with a parent signature.

Here’s how the Cowboys graded out in Week 9, along with playtime percentage breakdown.

What We Learned: Any Given Sunday mantra shows Cowboys to be better prepared

Rust is real, Steele is Steele and the Broncos feasted on a Sunday brunch meal. Here’s what we learned from Sunday’s loss. | From @CDPiglet

The 6-1 Dallas Cowboys went up against the Denver Broncos, a club that was 0-4 against winning teams, and showed what can happen when one team just plays a lot better then another in the NFL. The Cowboys had never been down double digits in a game, had averaged 40 points and were undefeated at AT&T Stadium this season. Denver came into their house and out played them, at one point leading 30-0.

It was a complete and sound beating. The Broncos had more passing yards, more than double Dallas’ rushing yards, were better in yards per play, and had 118 more total yards than one of the best offenses in football. Denver had more first downs, won the turnover battle, were better on third and fourth down conversions, and had 20 more minutes of time of possession.

Some say teams learn more from losses than they do from wins, and for the first time this season the Cowboys were outplayed by an opponent. There is a lot that can be learned from a blowout loss like Dallas had against the Broncos.

Broncos call Cowboys’ 4th-down plays ‘disrespectful;’ Dak Prescott upset by ‘lack of execution’

Several Denver players took the Cowboys’ early 4th-down conversion attempts personally; Dak Prescott feels they could have swung the game. | From @ToddBrock24f7

When the Cowboys lined up on 4th-and-1 on just the fourth play of Sunday’s game versus Denver, it may not have seemed like a controversial decision. The Cowboys came into the contest with one of the league’s top-ranked offenses by most any measure, running back Ezekiel Elliott was averaging 4.8 yards per rushing attempt on the season, and the ball was on the Broncos’ 38-yard-line. The alternative would have been a 56-yard-field goal try from a kicker who’s gone 1-of-3 from beyond 50 this season and just 4-of-12 from that distance as a Cowboy.

Going for it made perfect sense.

Unfortunately, Elliott was stuffed for a one-yard loss.

On Dallas’s next series, they went for it again on fourth down. This time, the ball was on the Denver 20. Rather than attempt a 38-yard field goal and put the first points of the afternoon on the scoreboard, the Cowboys went for it again, needing just two yards. Quarterback Dak Prescott’s throw to open wideout Cedrick Wilson fell incomplete.

Never mind what the analytics might say about going for it in those early and short-yardage situations on the plus-side of the field; Broncos wide receiver Tim Patrick chose to take it personally.

“Disrespectful,” Patrick said, as per the Broncos team website. “That [expletive]’s disrespectful. They trying us. And that’s what happens when you try us.”

The Cowboys went on to fail two more fourth-down conversion tries on the afternoon. 0-for-4 total. It’s not the reason they were blown out by a 30-16 score, but turning the ball over on downs on the first two possessions surely helped set a tone of ineffectiveness that carried over throughout the worst Dallas performance in quite some time.

Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy talked about inadvertently giving the Broncos a huge boost with those two plays.

“I mean, momentum,” McCarthy said in his postgame press conference. “We talk about momentum swings all the time. I think it’s important to respond to all the momentum swings. Especially if you have it, what do you do with it? And then frankly, when the opponent has it, how do you respond to it? The decisions? I’m fine with the decisions. The execution, particularly on the first one, they had better defense than we had play called; we had penetration in the A-gap and couldn’t get the ball to the edge on the outside zone. They came in aggressive.”

The second one was far more troubling. Aside from being in near-gimme territory for an NFL kicker to make a field goal and eschewing the seemingly easy three points, Prescott’s fluttering pass on the fourth-down to Wilson was ugly. So ugly, in fact, that the TV announcers and observers alike assumed it must have been deflected by a Denver defender.

“Yeah, I don’t think it was tipped,” Prescott confessed to reporters after the game. “I think I got ready to throw it on the crossing route, saw the guy’s hands up, and I think I just tried to change my arm angle at the last second and threw it, what, at his ankles? At that point, I was hoping Ced maybe made a catch, but yeah, I don’t miss those throws. Those are throws that I’ve worked on a long time, whether I’m moving my feet or whether I’m not able to get my back leg through, just finding a way to make that throw. That’s something I work hard on. It pisses me off when I miss a throw like that. That’s a big fourth down early in the game that we can keep going and move forward and get a touchdown. I think it just changed the whole way that this game plays and goes from there if I complete that and we’re able to stay on the field.”

But Prescott didn’t complete it, and the Cowboys weren’t able to stay on the field. And with a second straight fourth-down stop, the Broncos suddenly had some added juice.

“You take the field with a little anger, honestly,” Denver quarterback Teddy Bridgewater said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, man, they’re going for it because they’re saying our offense is not going to score or something.’ We talked about it in the huddle, and we used it as motivation… It’s one of those deals where you take the field and OK, you have a little added motivation to it. You can see that today.”

By the time the Cowboys tried to convert an another fourth down, the game was getting out of hand and it was desperation time. Down 19-0 midway through the third quarter, Dallas once again kept the offense on the field for a 4th-and 1 from their own 40. Despite needing just a few feet, Prescott went for broke. His deep ball missed wideout CeeDee Lamb. Badly.

“I definitely remember the play,” Prescott recalled. “Came back, CeeDee has a little return route. When I got back to him, he had turned and threw his hand up. There was a hole-player who was starting to make his way toward me. I mean, maybe I probably could have run, now looking back at it, but at the time, I was just trying to get it to CeeDee and make a big play and just put too much on it. It’s something that, as I’ve said, I’m missing throws and some throws on some crucial downs. Can’t have that.”

In the fourth quarter, Dallas was on the wrong side of their own 20 when they tried to move the sticks on a 4th-and-7. Prescott’s pass this time was intercepted. Five plays later, Denver extended their lead to 30-0.

Coming into the Week 9 game, the Cowboys had been 5-of-10 on fourth-down conversions. Now they’re 5-of-14.

The list of things that didn’t work for the Cowboys on Sunday is a long one. But questionable decisions and atrocious performances on key fourth-down plays has to be near the top of things the Dallas coaching staff must address heading into the back half of the regular season.

Prescott, for one, feels like his unit needs to keep punching. He suggested that the failed fourth downs didn’t diminish the offense’s confidence, even though he acknowledges that they boosted the opponents’.

“I mean, sure. I’m sure it does. But it doesn’t take confidence away from us,” the quarterback said. “It wasn’t about their confidence as much as it was just about our lack of execution in critical situations.”

“We just never got going,” McCarthy said in summary.

Broncos coach Vic Fangio knows all too well that fourth downs can cut both ways.

“Everybody wants to go for it on fourth down, right?” Fangio said. “Fourth-and-1, fourth-and-2… they cite all the numbers, so on and so forth. But when you don’t get them, it hurts. And we were the beneficiary of the hurt.”

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‘Definitely shocked:’ Dak Prescott looks for answers after Cowboys’ embarrassing no-show

“We got thumped in every aspect,” Dak Prescott said after the blowout; he and Mike McCarthy suggested the team may have “taken the cheese.” | From @ToddBrock24f7

It will go down in the permanent record as a 30-16 loss. But to those who watched it unfold, it was never that close; Dallas had to scramble to post all of their points within the final five minutes just to avoid being shut out at home.

The 6-1 Cowboys came in to Sunday’s Week 9 game with an opportunity to get off to their best start since 2016 and stake a legitimate claim as a front-runner in the race to the NFC’s lone postseason bye. All they had to do was take of business against a weaker opponent in a matchup that everyone had them favored to win, most by a wide margin. Instead, for three hours in Arlington, it was the 4-4 Broncos who played like a well-oiled machine and looked like the class of their conference as they rolled to a blowout win.

Even while standing at the podium and wearing street clothes, Dak Prescott seemed at a total loss to explain what had just happened. The Cowboys quarterback played an uncharacteristically poor game, but so did nearly every other player wearing the star on Sunday afternoon.

“Definitely shocked,” Prescott said in his postgame press conference. “They whooped us in every aspect. They beat us. That’s not something you ever think about or ever envision happening. But it’s something we’ll learn from. And we’ll learn from every aspect of it: offense, defense, special teams. Situationally, especially. We’ve just got to be better. We’ve got to play a cleaner game. We’ve got to start faster in a noon game like this. They did a better job at it: got on us and got on us fast. We were playing from behind and we weren’t able to do anything.”

Prescott in particular was ineffective for most of the game. While he ended up with a seemingly-respectable two touchdown passes and 232 passing yards, he went into halftime having completed just five of 14 throws for 75 yards and only one third down conversion.

“We got thumped in every aspect of the game, especially on offense,” he said. “I never got going. I missed some throws. We didn’t throw and catch the ball as we normally do. Wasn’t our best performance by any means, obviously our worst of the year.”

Sunday marked Prescott’s first game action in 20 days- after straining a calf in Week 6 against New England, then taking the bye week off, and finally missing the Halloween night thriller in Minnesota as he fully recovered. But Prescott said he felt no ill effects from the injury on Sunday, despite looking rusty and inaccurate for most of the afternoon.

“Obviously, I wasn’t as clean as I normally am or as I have been. It’s tough to say and blame that. I spent a lot of time off and came back in the first game [versus Tampa Bay] different. So I’m not going to sit there and blame two weeks when I had a great week of practice that I had under my belt coming into this one. I just missed some throws, and we just weren’t our normal selves in the passing game when we needed to be. We didn’t execute.”

But it certainly wasn’t just Prescott. The Cowboys defense gave up 190 rushing yards, allowed Denver to convert more than half of their third-down attempts, and let the Broncos dominate time of possession by more than a two-to-one margin.

“The physicality was definitely not what I’m looking for,” Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy told reporters after the loss.

After ripping off six straight wins since the season opener, the Cowboys looked like a team who had perhaps started to believe their own hype. McCarthy even admitted that it had shown during the week leading up to Sunday’s debacle.

“Had concern on Wednesday, as far as the way we’ve come off some successful weeks,” McCarthy said. “The message was ‘Don’t take the cheese.’ And frankly, we were out-coached, we were out-played, all the way through. This is the first time I’ve felt clearly our energy didn’t exceed our opponent, and that’s disappointing.”

Prescott also hinted that maybe the Cowboys players were a little too full of themselves and looked past the Broncos.

“I don’t know,” Prescott began. “At this point- right after this game, when we started the way we did, we just weren’t able to get anything going, and got beat on all three phases- I would say maybe. When you win a game like we did last week, on the road in a tough environment with everything going against us, I think you sometimes think you can just roll out there and get it done, even when the adversity hits. I don’t think there was really ever a point until maybe the last few minutes in the game where we didn’t think that we were going to be able to get something going to win this game. Then when that sinks in, you just realize it’s the NFL. This is a tough business.”

Prescott was still out there in those last few minutes, despite being behind 30-0 late in the game. The Cowboys left all their starters in, risking exposure to injury in an attempt to make something positive happen before time expired.

“Frankly, the fourth quarter was a conscious effort to keep [Dak] in there for the two-minute work,” McCarthy explained. “That’s something that if I was looking at all the situational work that we’ve done and the commitment that you put to each situation, we needed that work. So I was happy to see us have some two-minute production, just because that’s something I think we definitely can carry forward out of this game.”

Prescott said he never considered that he wouldn’t finish the contest, regardless of the score or situation.

“I mean, there was game left out there to be played,” Prescott said. “I don’t think I ever– it never crossed my mind that I was coming out of the game. I think if somebody would have tried to make that decision, I would have told them I wasn’t. Yeah, we needed to get something going. We needed to get some energy, some momentum. We needed to show our fight, our resiliency, something that’s won us a lot of games. When you’re getting beat like that, you’ve got to show your character. I think that starts with all of us staying in the game and fighting ’til the end and trying to get some momentum or something going just to take from this game.”

What the Cowboys may have been able to take from the humiliating defeat remains to be seen. Prescott likened Sunday’s loss to a 23-0 drubbing at the hands of Indianapolis late in the 2018 season. Dallas had come in to that showdown on a five-game win streak; Indianapolis was just barely over .500 at the time.

The Cowboys came out the following week and beat Tampa Bay at AT&T Stadium to clinch the NFC East. This year’s crew will look to next week when they host Atlanta for their bounceback opportunity.

“I think everybody just has to be accountable for what just happened,” Prescott offered. “You win as a team, and you lose as a team. And it starts with the leaders; we’re not looking and asking the coaches to do something different. We’ve got to be more physical. We’ve got to take accountability in this loss and make sure that we come in tomorrow and make sure that we move forward from this, learn from it, and then in come in Wednesday and have a great day of practice and make sure that this is something we learn from. This feeling sucks and make sure we don’t feel this again.”

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Listless, rhythmless Cowboys suffer humiliating 30-16 home loss to Broncos

The Cowboys don’t tend to play well in early games at AT&T. They’ve never looked this bad, though, as they fall at home for the first time in 2021. A game recap. | From @KDDrummondNFL

Adversity has finally found the 2021 Dallas Cowboys. For the first time since early in the 2020 campaign, head coach Mike McCarthy is going to have to convince his troops they are indeed better, much better, than the performance they put on the field.

Dallas returned to the supposedly-friendly confines of AT&T Stadium Sunday, where they averaged 40 points a contest so far this season, but they could not achieve that feat. Nor 30. Nor 20. They didn’t even get past 10 until under one minute left in the game.  In fact, Dallas was shutout until garbage time when trailing 30-0, finally got something going. Dallas fell, 30-16, to drop to 6-2 on the season at the halfway mark.

Winners of six straight on the heels of as moral victory an opening-season loss can be, the fanbase and organization has been flying high for the last two month. Through various injuries, COVID protocol absences and more, it seemed that nothing could derail the Cowboys’ full-steam ahead efforts in Mike McCarthy’s second season. With their Sunday night win over the Minnesota Vikings, with backup, no-start Cooper Rush at the helm, Dallas appeared capable of winning in any environment.

Welcome to Week 9.

The Dallas Cowboys welcomed in the Denver Broncos, a team they face only every four years but hadn’t defeated since the Super Bowl campaign of 1995. That streak will unfortunately continue as the Broncos embarrassed Dallas through all three phases.

Quarterback Dak Prescott missed several open receivers throughout the contest. The passing targets dropped several catchable passes. Terence Steele and the offensive line didn’t do a great job of protection either as Tyron Smith missed his first game of the season. The team entered Broncos’ territory on the opening kickoff, but couldn’t convert a fourth-down conversion. They made it to the Broncos’ 20 on the next drive, but again failed to convert.

They didn’t make it back into Broncos’ territory again until under six minutes remaining in the game.

The defense was run over, run around and ran past on numerous occasions making Javonte Williams and Tim Patrick into stars for the game. The team ran for almost 200 yards on the game and Teddy Bridgewater and company converted eight of 15 third downs after Dallas held Minnesota to 1-for-13 just a week ago. As a result, Denver had four different scoring drives of at least 10 plays.

Even the special teams couldn’t get things done, muffing a punt, failing to down one and then making the weirdest mistake of all. To start the second half, Dallas got a three and out and blocked a punt, only Nahshon Wright touched it and because the Broncos recovered beyond the line-to-go, they kept possession then marched down the field for a field goal.

It was that kind of game.

Dallas entered the contest as almost 10-point favorites, leading the league in total offense and third in scoring. Their defense was supposed to be up and coming.

All of those things were shredded on Sunday against the Broncos.

For the first time this season, Dallas will have to go through a week of practice with doubt in their minds. What they tried to do, didn’t work. Their halftime adjustments made no difference. Kellen Moore and Dan Quinn didn’t coordinate a winning effort and now they will have to figure out what went wrong.

Throughout the season, Dallas hasn’t played perfectly, giving the coaching staff things to harp on despite racking up victories. Now they’ll have to figure out how to get out of a funk before their next game.

WATCH: Cowboys’ Prescott finds Turner for pair of TDs to avoid shutout

There weren’t many positives on Sunday for Dallas, but Malik Turner grabbed a pair of scores to avoid the shutout and salvage some pride.

Nothing has gone right for the Dallas Cowboys against the Broncos at home. Down 30-0, quarterback Dak Prescott and the offense marched onto the field late in the fourth quarter with nothing to gain but their first score of the game and pride.

Dallas put together a nine-play, 75-yard drive in garbage time, capped off by a five-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Malik Turner to escape the first shutout for the Cowboys in AT&T Stadium.

Turner was the player who blocked the punt on the weird conversion for Denver on the first drive of the first half. The reserve receiver was making plays all over the field when the stars watched on the sideline.

The NFL might’ve switched the broadcast off of the Cowboys game, but Dallas still had some fireworks late, regardless of consequence. After a quick defensive stop, Prescott surprisingly returned to the field and repeated the previous drive’s conclusion with a touchdown pass to Turner and a 2-point conversion on the ground

Of all Cowboys receivers to have a big day, Turner was probably right down at the bottom of the list but there’s something to be said for being stubborn and adding points to feel positivity instead of walking to the locker room with their heads down.

If there’s anything good for Dallas to take away from the brutal loss, it’s a bit of rhythm after struggling all day. The Cowboys drop to 6-2 and have to flush this loss before playing the Falcons next week, who took down the Saints in Week 9.

Cowboys sleepwalk through 1st half, wake up to 16-0 halftime deficit to Broncos

A look at what has gone wrong in the Dallas Cowboys’ Week 9 home game against the Denver Broncos. It’s been a lot.

The Dallas Cowboys may have thought it was one thing, but this Week 9 matchup against the Denver Broncos is decidedly something else. Coming home after two road wins bookended their bye week, the 6-1 Cowboys were welcoming back their star quarterback. Dak Prescott missed the win in Week 8 and wasn’t very sharp in the first half of his return.

The team has sorely missed Tyron Smith, out with an ankle injury and to compound things RB Ezekiel Elliott came up hobbled after a first-quarter run and has looked hurt in the few snaps he played since. If anyone was expecting one of the other units to step up, they have been sorely disappointed. The Cowboys are off on all accounts, and find themselves down 16-0 at intermission.

With Prescott recovering from a calf injury and without their starting left tackle, the Cowboys seem intent on trying to give Terence Steele help.

Dallas went for it, and failed, on their opening two possessions of the game and the Broncos took offense to it and have been rolling ever since, scoring on three consecutive drives.

After a strong defensive effort on their first possession, Dallas has been run over, run around and run past as Teddy Bridgewater and the Denver offense has humbled whatever feelings of pride Dan Quinn’s unit had after their effort in Minnesota.

Some quick notes:

  • Offense went pass on 1st down four straight times for 0 yards, then followed it up with runs on 2nd and 10.
  • Special teams with errors on first two plays, Cedrick Wilson muffed the punt but Joseph recovered, then Goodwin wasn’t aware of where the punt was with a chance to pin Denver deep to start 2nd quarter
  • It was a bad sign when RB Javonte Williams carried defensive tackle Justin Hamilton for six yards on the second Broncos possession and the tackling never improved throughout the first half. The Broncos are averaging 5.6 yards per run.
  • Trevon Diggs is having a hideous game. He was called for pass interference in the end zone, gave up a big bomb for a score to Tim Patrick later and at the end of the half held Patrick to negate a Jourdan Lewis interception on the other side of the filed.
  • Dak Prescott is 5 for 14 for 75 yards and a 54.2 passer rating.
  • Teddy Bridgewater is 12for 16 passing for 154 yards and a 125.5 passer rating.
  • The Broncos get the ball to start the third quarter.
  • The Cowboys have three sacks of which Micah Parsons has 1.5 of them.

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Week 9 Inactives: Cowboys welcome back Dak Prescott as Tyron Smith sits

The Cowboys welcome back Dak Prescott and avoid the loss of CeeDee Lamb and Amari Cooper, but are without Tyron Smith versus the Broncos. | From @CDBurnett7

After a week of nagging injuries for the pair of star wide receivers, CeeDee Lamb and Amari Cooper are active alongside quarterback Dak Prescott, making his return after a week off due to injury in the Minnesota win.

Dallas only has four inactives, the biggest being left tackle Tyron Smith who injured his ankle against the Vikings. Right tackle La’el Collins is back at his starting spot versus Denver while backup Terence Steele shifted to the left side, preparing to start in Smith’s absence.

With Prescott back, third-string quarterback Will Grier is inactive while wide receiver Simi Fehoko and safety Israel Mukuamu won’t see the field for at least another week.

The Broncos have had a carousel of injuries and COVID issues, with quarterback Drew Lock in the protocol so starter Teddy Bridgewater will be without a serviceable backup. Starting left tackle Garrett Bolles is out, similar to Dallas’ loss at the position while outside linebacker Malik Reed is also inactive for the contest.

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Broncos lose QB, starting TE for Cowboys game due to COVID protocols

The Cowboys’ opponent lost a key piece of their offense and two safety nets due to COVID-19 protocols. Here’s the fallout. | From @KDDrummondNFL

There has been plenty of attention being paid to the COVID-19 protocols in the NFL this past week due to reigning MVP Aaron Rodgers testing positive. The star QB will miss Sunday’s matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs, and potentially next week’s game as well depending on his ability to test negative now that, according to him, he is no longer symptomatic. That isn’t the only COVID news of the weekend though.

The Dallas Cowboys’ Sunday opponent has now ruled out three of their players due to protocols, and it includes on of their quarterbacks. Backup Drew Lock, along with tight end Noah Fant have been ruled out of Sunday’s game.

Lock of course lost a training camp battle with Teddy Bridgewater to be the team’s starting quarterback, but would have been in line to play in Bridgewater’s season of injuries continues. He’s had a concussion and recently suffered foot and quad injuries, though the team refused to turn to Lock, even on a short week.

Brett Rypien will now backup Bridgewater in this game.

Meanwhile Fant is the team’s starting tight end and is second on the team in receptions (37) and targets (53) and tied for the team lead in touchdowns (3).

His loss is a major blow, especially considering his backup, Albert Okwuegbunam is questionable after being limited in practice all week with a knee injury.

Netane Muti is a backup offensive lineman.

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QTNA Week 9: Regret over Fields? Cowboys’ weaknesses? Broncos under-the-radar players

Who’s the baddest on the block now that Von Miller’s gone? Is there any regret to stealing Patrick Surtain? We go behind enemy lines with @ByJonHeath of @TheBroncosWire to learn more.

The Dallas Cowboys are big favorites entering Week 9, but should they be? All signs point to yes. For one, the Denver Broncos have lost four of their last five games, and Dallas is returning home after two road games bookended the bye week. The Cowboys have outscored their opponents 121-69 at AT&T Stadium, a fittingly nice scoring margin for a team averaging over 40 points a home contest.

Still, the Broncos have enjoyed a steady edge over the Cowboys in recent years, so a win isn’t preordained. While the teams only match up once every four years, it’s easy to lose track of where each franchise is if not paying close attention. To help out with that, Jon Heath, managing editor of Broncos Wire sat down to provide answers to a few questions that need answers. In exchange, Cowboys Wire offered some enemy intel in return.