Tag: Dallas Cowboys vs Los Angeles Chargers

3 Cowboys fined for Week 6 roughness; no word on punishments for pregame brawl

From @ToddBrock24f7: Several Cowboys defenders will take a financial hit for action during the win, but nothing yet for the fight that took place before kickoff.

The NFL has released its list of monetary fines imposed on players in Week 6, and while several Cowboys will be taking a financial hit, the one everybody expected to be there is nowhere to be found.

Defensive end Dorance Armstrong, safety Jayron Kearse, and safety Markquese Bell were all fined for unnecessary roughness during the team’s 20-17 win over the Los Angeles Chargers. Armstrong and Kearse will each be docked $21,855; Bell will owe $4,681.

The second-quarter hit for which Kearse was fined, a helmet-to-helmet tackle of L.A. quarterback Justin Herbert, additionally drew a 15-yard penalty flag during the game.

Bell’s fine comes as a result of helmet-to-helmet contact, too, made during a solo tackle of running back Austin Ekeler on a third-and-goal play in the fourth quarter, but it did not warrant a flag at the time.

Armstrong’s roughness is given as occurring on a second-quarter play, but replays do not make immediately clear what Armstrong did to incur the fine; he was not flagged during the Week 6 win.

But defensive end Dante Fowler is not listed at all for his involvement in the pregame brawl that took place prior to kickoff.

Cameras spotted Fowler striking Ekeler, fully knocking his helmet off his head as players from the two teams met and exchange heated words near midfield during warmups.

Defensive tackle Mazi Smith and defensive end Sam Williams were also among the Cowboys in the middle of the action; none appears on the league’s list of fined players, nor do any Chargers.

While the altercation happened before the start of the game, all players’ actions would still be subject to the league’s conduct policies. (For what it’s worth, no one who was a part of a similar pregame fight between the Browns and 49ers on Sunday appears on the list of fined players either.)

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It is not known if any fines- or other punishment- for the pregame fight will be announced by the league at a later time or otherwise revealed to the public.

All fines are always subject to an appeal by the player. Fines are donated to the Professional Athletes Foundation and the NFL Foundation.

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‘Got to make the plays’: Cowboys calling on WR Michael Gallup to bounce back after rough Week 6

From @ToddBrock24f7: WR coach Robert Prince recognizes Gallup had a rough night vs the Chargers but says the sixth-year veteran is capable of turning it around.

To say Michael Gallup had a rough outing in the Week 6 win over the Chargers is an understatement.

The Cowboys receiver led the team in pass targets with 10, but he caught just three of them, for 24 yards. At one point- with less than four minutes left in the game, as a matter of fact- every Dallas player Dak Prescott had thrown to had a perfect catch percentage… except for Gallup, who had all seven incompletions next to his name.

“As a receiver, our job is to get open,” Cowboys wide receivers coach Robert Prince told reporters this week at The Star. “And when the ball is thrown to us, we’ve got to make the plays.”

The sixth-year man has been with Prescott longer than any other pass-catcher on the team. And Prescott is looking Gallup’s way more than any other option save for CeeDee Lamb: more than Tony Pollard (the speedy starter out of the backfield), more than Brandin Cooks (the savvy vet brought in to be the deep threat), more than Jake Ferguson (the security blanket), and more than Jalen Tolbert, KaVontae Turpin, Luke Schoonmaker, Deuce Vaughn, Peyton Hendershot, Hunter Luepke, and Sean McKeon combined.

Of Gallup’s 32 targets, he’s caught just 18 of them.

To be fair, though, Gallup has never been a high-percentage catch guy. His career-best mark is just 56.6%, and in three of his five completed seasons, he’s posted a year-end number of under 50%.

No, the 6-foot-1-inch Gallup has instead been the guy Prescott calls on to catch the tough passes, the ones in traffic, the contested grabs.

“One thing with MG is,” Prince noted, “he is a big body. And that’s his game; he likes to play the physical game, and he’s made a living at those type of things. Hopefully, he’ll continue to do those things.”

He certainly had opportunities Monday night.

Prescott put up a potential touchdown ball for Gallup in the first quarter (the first play in the video clip below), but it was just high. Later in the second quarter (the third play in the clip), Gallup was held just enough to disrupt his concentration on a 40-yard bullet that hit him in the hands and likely would have carried him into the end zone.

“He’s got to make those plays,” Prince explained, “Even though he got tugged and the ref didn’t throw the flag, we’ve still got to make it.”

The multiple drops in Week 6 fueled online chatter that Gallup didn’t deserve the five-year $62.5 million extension he signed last March and that the club should move on.

Prince acknowledges that the 27-year-old has had a long and difficult road back from the ACL tear he suffered in January 2022. Gallup himself admitted that it took over 16 months for him to feel like his old self and trust his body again.

“Obviously, he was coming back from his knee last year and thinking he’s going to have a better year this year. And unfortunately, sometimes things didn’t work out,” explained Prince. “But we put MG out on the island out there when we go on a three-by-one set, and he’s going to get press coverage, and we’re asking him to win those battles.”

While Monday’s bumpy performance had fans (with apparently very short-term or selective memory issues) calling for his job, Gallup has actually come up big as recently as Week 4.

He reeled in five out of six targets (83.3%) for 60 yards versus New England, six out of seven (85.7%) for 92 yards the week prior in Arizona. In those two games, played less than a month ago, Prescott averaged a 113.2 passer rating when going to Gallup.

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Overall, his stats (regular season only) do show that Gallup hasn’t quite returned to his pre-injury level of play. But he’s not that far off, either. Certainly not enough to cut bait.

Gms Catch % Yds/Gm Yds/Rec
Pre-ACL tear 55 55.5% 52.8 15.04
Post-ACL tear 20 53.8% 31.4 11.02

Prince is preaching patience with Gallup. And he’s got a vocal disciple in the WR room in Cooks, who’s already shown a willingness to mentor the team’s younger receivers; after Cooks worked with Lamb to get through his Week 5 frustrations (and his own touchdown drought), No. 88 caught every single ball that came to him Monday night at SoFi.

Before the game was even over, Cooks had already taken his message to Gallup.

Now, with promising newcomers Turpin, Tolbert, and Jalen Brooks waiting in the wings to sneak a few targets away here and there, the team will have to wait until Week 8 to see if the lesson has sunk in and Gallup starts to return to form.

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3 takeaways from Cowboys first 6-game stretch ending with win over Chargers

What can the Cowboys takeaway from their bounce-back victory over the Chargers to end the first phase of their season? From @cdpiglet

The Cowboys’ fanbase could choose to be pessimistic after the club left Los Angeles with a narrow victory over the Chargers. The team couldn’t run the ball at all, the pass blocking wasn’t much better, and the team wasn’t disciplined. They committed 14 penalties, 11 accepted and seven of the pre-snap variety.

However if the fans want to be optimistic, this was a game set up for the Dallas Cowboys to lose that still ended in victory. For the first time all year the club played a close game, and they escaped.

Last season, every San Francisco 49ers opponent but one (the world champion Kansas City Chiefs) lost the following week. This year, only the Steelers had been able to avoid that trend. The 49ers are rugged to deal with and wear an opponent down physically and mentally.

The Chargers were coming off a bye week, which allowed them to bring back Austin Ekeler plus play Derwin James Jr. and Joey Bosa. Dallas also had a brutal travel schedule, traveling to California and playing in primetime back-to-back weeks.

Sometimes leaving plenty to work on can be a positive going into a bye week. The team needs to look at the major takeaways of this win and how to use them to improve the team going into another matchup with a West Coast team in two weeks.

 

Lessons Learned: 3 things we now know about the Cowboys offense

A tragic run game and a target deserving of more attention were among the key lessons taught on Monday night, says @ReidDHanson.

For the first time all season, the Cowboys were involved in a hotly contested battle which lasted deep into the fourth quarter. Brandon Aubrey’s 39-yard field goal with 2:19 remaining proved to be the winning points, after a Stephon Gilmore interception sealed the deal for Dallas.

In previous weeks, the Cowboys were either blowing teams out or playing a futile game of catch-up themselves. Week 1 through Week 5 offered very little to show how the Dallas offense operates in neutral situations. On Monday against the Chargers, it finally got the chance.

After a week of criticism and unrelenting scrutiny, Mike McCarthy was finally able to call the game he wanted to. The returns were modest, but also honest. A 20-17 game isn’t something McCarthy can be very excited about as a play-caller. But Dallas got the win, and the season goes on with renewed postseason expectations.

Heading into their bye week, the Cowboys finally learned some things about their offense. Proper review and analysis should help them make corrections and set them on a new path as they reassess strategies over their off week.

DT Osa Odighizuwa wins PFF Player of the Week in Cowboys win

The Cowboys top interior defensive linemen is getting the credit he deserves, winning PFF’s defensive player of the week. | From @ReidDHanson

At face value, a 17-point yield on defense isn’t much to get excited about. The Cowboys defense held their first two opponents in 2023 to 10 total points. And after getting embarrassed on national television against the 49ers in Week 5, they needed a dominate effort to repair their tarnished image.

A closer look showed it truly was the dominant performance the Cowboys were searching for. While the constant penalties made things needlessly difficult, some of that can be attributed to a flag-happy officiating crew and some overzealous individuals. When it counted, players came up huge and one of those players who posted an absolutely ernormous day was third-year DT, Osa Odighizuwa.

Odighizuwa has been the Cowboys top DT all season, but in Week 6, he posted arguably his best game of the year. He clocked a hit and five hurries in 33 pass rush snaps, earning him Pro Football Focus’s top grade of the game and Defensive Player of the Week honors.

Odighizuwa now ranks No. 6 amongst DTs. He’s in the NFL’s top tier in pass rush wins from the interior defensive line and a big reason opposing offenses can’t devote all resources to stopping Dallas’ onslaught of EDGE rushers.

Odighizuwa was popular choice as a breakout player to watch in 2023. While a case could be made the UCLA product had already broken out, he’d yet to be nationally recognized.

This could be a big step in his bid for Pro Bowl honors in 2023.

Playing on his rookie deal through the 2024 season, Odighizuwa represents one of the biggest bargains on the Cowboys roster. He’s established himself as one of the best young DTs in the NFL and shows an appreciation for both phases of the game.

Odighizuwa is Dallas’ top pressure player from the interior. He can penetrate inside gaps in a flash and stunt outside with defensive ends with ease. He’s also shown the ability to play inside and outside in odd-man fronts making him a versatile tool in Dan Quinn’s defensive arsenal.

Despite seeing double-teams 66 percent of the time in 2023, He’s ranked No. 2 in ESPN’s pass-rush win-rate.

Odighizuwa has shown improvement every season he’s played and he’s yet to plateau in his development. The sky is the limit for this 25-year-old linemen and he’s already become a cornerstone player on the Cowboys defense.

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‘Trusting the process’ pays off for Cowboys WRs Brandin Cooks, CeeDee Lamb

From @ToddBrock24f7: Brandin Cooks had to wait until Week 6 for his first TD as a Cowboy, but he’s also impacting the Dallas locker room with his leadership.

It took a while, but The Archer finally hit a bulls-eye.

Wide receiver Brandin Cooks caught his first touchdown as a Cowboy during Monday night’s 20-17 win in Los Angeles, a full six weeks into a season where he was supposed to take the top off the Dallas offense.

Coming into the game with just nine receptions and 73 yards on 19 targets over four outings (he was inactive in Week 2), the tenth-year veteran finished 4-for-4 for 36 yards and that crucial fourth-quarter score.

He admitted afterward that it was all about staying patient.

“I was just trusting the process,” Cooks told reporters after the win. “Went out there and had a hard week of practice. Worked hard, and then like I always say, when the opportunity shows, I just try to take advantage of that.”

He did just that, capping off the offense’s longest drive of the night (in yards) for the 50th touchdown of his pro career.

 

“It felt good,” he said. “It’s been a while, but at the end of the day, the ball found me. Great throw by Dak, trusting me. I’m thankful, for sure.”

“He was due for a night like this,” quarterback Dak Prescott said of Cooks in his postgame remarks.

“He’s done everything right from the moment he showed up in the spring. been a consistent leader, leading other guys on the field, off the field, and just doing everything right and everything that we’ve asked him to do in between the lines. And he hasn’t really reaped the rewards.”

Cooks no doubt expected a larger piece of the sumptuous pie that can be the Cowboys offense. And while the Cowboys certainly had hoped to cash in on another 1,000-yard season from Cooks- as he’s given his previous four clubs- they also acquired the former first-rounder to provide veteran leadership in a receivers room where no one else is over 27 years of age.

Especially CeeDee Lamb.

The unquestioned WR1 within the Cowboys passing attack, Lamb was visibly frustrated during Week 5’s loss to San Francisco. His body language had many outside the building concerned about failing chemistry with Prescott and a disgruntled attitude turning into a distraction for the offense.

Cooks spent time in the days after the loss coaching Lamb on just rolling with the punches.

“That’s part of why I’m here, right? To be able to help lead,” Cooks remarked. “Obviously, he’s extremely talented, but there are some things he may not have been through in his career. So talking to him, telling him just continue to trust the process, the ball is going to find him. It simply has to, because he’s one of our best playmakers.”

Lesson learned: Lamb finished the Chargers game with seven catches on seven targets for 117 yards.

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Head coach Mike McCarthy hopes to make Cooks’s patience payoff even further by getting him more involved as a downfield threat coming out of the bye, but he also believes the rest of the 4-2 team can learn by example from his veteran pass-catcher in what has become, by his own words, a “rollercoaster” of a season.

“Brandin is the ultimate pro. He’s the same man every day. He’s a joy to work with, extremely coachable,” McCarthy explained from the podium Monday night. “He’s very, very consistent, and frankly, it’s a lead that we need to follow because we need to be more consistent and we’ve got to get our continuity. That’s a focus for us moving forward.”

If that happens, the Cowboys will be that much closer to hitting their own 2023 target.

And The Archer will be letting a lot more arrows fly, in a lot more end zones.

“Dak trusted me tonight,” Cooks offered, “and I just want to keep that going.”

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Here are the 4 biggest plays from Cowboys’ crucial win over Chargers

From @ToddBrock24f7: Dak Prescott put the team on his shoulders (and legs) in L.A., but iffy game management and special teams nearly cost the Cowboys.

Monday night’s nail-biter ended the weekend slate with a hard-fought back-and-forth slugfest. And while it was frequently anything but pretty, it did end with a Cowboys victory to send them into their bye week with a 4-2 record.

It was Dallas’s first win of the season that didn’t come by way of a landslide; in fact, the Cowboys team that came off SoFi Stadium’s turf winners by a 20-17 margin looked nothing like the squad that demolished the Giants, Jets, and Patriots.

There were signs of life, however, for the offense. Mike McCarthy’s play calling has not lived up to expectations by any stretch, but Dak Prescott was able to take matters into his own hands (and feet), re-establish a connection with CeeDee Lamb, do some ad-libbing with Tony Pollard, finally got Brandin Cooks involved, and turn in a solid game that should quiet the haters… somewhat.

Don’t expect the seat under McCarthy to get any cooler, though; there are still plenty of questions about an offense that has yet to come out firing on all cylinders, and Dan Quinn’s defense clearly has some work to do during the off week to clean up penalties and tighten up their tackling.

In a rollercoaster affair that provided ample twists, turns, and loop-de-loops, here are four plays that helped tell the story of the Cowboys’ Week 6 win.

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‘Built for those moments’: Prescott, McCarthy credit Cowboys defense with saving game late

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Dallas defense hadn’t recorded a sack or takeaway in the first 58 minutes, but then they delivered both when it mattered the most.

In a game where they hadn’t done anything really special, the Cowboys defense finally woke up in the nick of time and put the exclamation point on the team’s 20-17 nail-biter of a win Monday night.

For 58 minutes of play, Dallas had not registered a single sack nor gotten a takeaway, two things they excelled at last season. But after taking a three-point lead late and then giving Los Angeles a chance at a game-winning drive, two of the Cowboys’ biggest names stepped up on back-to-back plays.

First came Micah Parsons, beating a double-team block to take down quarterback Justin Herbert for an eight-yard loss. It was Parsons’s first sack since Week 3’s loss in Arizona. (Parsons has- still- only had one three-game stretch as a pro without a sack, Weeks 5 through 7 of his rookie season.)

“To watch a guy like Micah show up,” Prescott told reporters afterward, “that’s what great players do: show up in great big-time moments. First sack of the game; hadn’t had one all game, and there he goes, here he comes. It’s an important time, gets a sack.”

“That’s how we feel we’re built, for those moments,” Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said in his postgame press conference. “Our pass rush and big-time players making big plays: an important part of these type of games. Hopefully we’re in that position each and every week, where our pass rush is put up to the forefront of the challenge.”

But Parsons’s well-timed takedown wasn’t the final nail in the Chargers’ coffin. Suddenly racing from deep in their own territory with no timeouts left, Herbert found himself in another collapsing pocket and tossed a wobbly pass that was picked off by cornerback Stephon Gilmore.

“It was a lot of back and forth all night,” the five-time Pro Bowler said after his interception sealed a game that had seen him get burned on a couple earlier plays. “Just trying to keep that short-term memory and was able to make a play at the end. That’s what big-time players do.”

“Veteran guy that’s a leader of this team,” Prescott said of Gilmore. “Talks about guys just doing the right thing, staying at it, staying consistent. And guys really picking up and just being there for one another. That’s what the defense did for me in that moment, did for the team in that moment, of getting that turnover.”

Just minutes earlier, Prescott had missed Tony Pollard in the end zone. That connection would have given Dallas a seven-point lead and made the Chargers’ final possession slightly less nerve-racking. As it turned out, though, the Cowboys defense came to Prescott’s rescue.

“I’ve got to make that throw to get the touchdown right there at the end,” Prescott said. “And I’m on the sideline pissed off about that and look up and hear our defense makes a play. That’s what it’s about: having each other’s back. Thankful.”

The back-to-back highlights in the eleventh hour salvaged what was nearly a second straight disastrous performance. And things hadn’t looked promising for much of the night; the Dallas defense was on the field for nearly 12 and a half minutes of the third quarter alone and looked legitimately gassed at times.

And while players like DeMarcus Lawrence, Osa Odighizuwa, and Markquese Bell turned in solid efforts, the defense as a whole just couldn’t seem to make the type of game-defining splash play that had earmarked earlier outings against the Giants, Jets, and Patriots.

Until the very end, when it mattered most.

“A tremendous amount of grit,” McCarthy noted of the unit. “I was worried about them there in the second half. They had those long drives, and we come out and ran twice with three-and-outs. I just can’t say enough about their tenacity. They keep battling. That’s the way we’re wired. Then we put it in their hands there at the end, and they delivered.”

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And on a night when he did just about everything else, with both his arm and his legs, Prescott was more than happy to share the victory spotlight with his teammates on the other side of the ball after they saved the best for last and came up huge.

“Credit to our defense,” Prescott raved. “That’s what it’s about, the brotherhood that we have. That’s when you can really hang your hat on the brotherhood; it’s not just a word.”

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Studs and Duds: Should Cowboys even let McCarthy celebrate the win?

Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb were among the bright spots for the Cowboys in their 20-17 Week 6 win over the Los Angeles Chargers. | From @BenGrimaldi

There’s rarely a dull moment with the Dallas Cowboys and that proved to be true once again in their thrilling 20-17 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers. With the walls closing in on the Cowboys, the team overcame some sloppy football to make big plays at the right times and walk away victorious.

The Cowboys needed to head into the bye week on a positive note, and despite a slow start, horrific coaching decisions, sloppy play and penalties, the team escaped Los Angeles with a win.

In victory, Dallas had their best players step up and make key plays to eradicate some of the ugliness. Here are the studs and duds for the Cowboys in their Week 6 win over the Chargers.

40+ of the best pics from Cowboys escaping Chargers crunch in Week 6

A collection of some of the best snaps from Dallas’ fourth victory on the season as they head into the bye on a positive note. | From @KDDrummondNFL

The Chargers defense clearly got some inside intel from Kellen Moore and Doug Nussmeier on how to attack Dallas’ offense on Monday night. They routinely harassed quarterback Dak Prescott, sacking the Cowboys’ signal caller five times and on numerous occassions forcing the signal caller to escape danger. Prescott came through though, leading Dallas to a game-winning fourth-quarter drive where rookie kicker Brandon Aubrey nailed a short field goal for a 20-17 lead.

The defense had to come through though, and they did in a big way with back-to-back plays. First Micah Parsons rattled QB Justin Herbert with a crucial sack and then the pressure on the next play led to Stephon Gilmore’s interception. All in all, it was a good day for the Cowboys who improved to 4-2 on the young season. Here are some of the great photo captures from USA Today Images and Getty.