Tag: Dallas Cowboys vs New York Giants

Good, Bad, Ugly: Cowboys WRs come alive in win, penalty problems continue

From @ToddBrock24f7: There was a lot to love about the Cowboys’ record-setting day, but Jourdan Lewis and Neville Gallimore offer room to improve.

Things got off to a shaky start for the Cowboys in Week 10, but the offense quickly found their footing and turned in a monster day, rolling up 640 yards of offense and scoring seven touchdowns on 12 drives in their 49-17 thrashing of the rival Giants.

Much of the coming days will be spent dissecting all the ways in which Dallas dominated, from Dak Prescott’s surgical precision to CeeDee Lamb’s record-setting haul to the defense preventing Big Blue from converting a single third down.

Of course, not everything went perfectly, and the Cowboys coaches will have things to harp on over the next week of practice as the team prepares to face another struggling opponent in Carolina. (Get ready to hear a lot about cleaning up stupid penalties.)

Here’s just some of the good, as well as the bad and the ugly from Sunday’s- ahem- giant victory.

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The Rise of Brandin: Cowboys’ offense Cooks with key ingredient

The Cowboys have waited a while for Brandin Cooks to break out on offense; here’s how his emergence means big things for the Dallas offense. | From @ReidDHanson

It made no sense. Brandin Cooks didn’t just survive in every offense he’s ever been in, he’s thrived in them. The nomadic WR out of Oregon State has played for four teams since joining the NFL nine years ago. He’s posted thousand-yard seasons in all of them before joining Dallas.

In seasons in which Cooks has played at least 15 games, he’s posted thousand-yard seasons every single one of them. Yet since joining the Cowboys via trade this offseason, he’s largely been a non-factor. Until Week 10, that is.

Prior to Sunday’s showdown against the Giants, Cooks was on pace for just 36 receptions and a shade over 350 yards for the season. But after erupting for nine receptions and 173 yards, Cooks is now on a more familiar trajectory. He’s not going to get 173 yards every week, but he only needs to average 83 yards to cross the thousand-yard threshold.

Why the Cowboys offense struggled to get Cooks involved for so long is anyone’s guess. Cooks found a way to produce in every system he’s been in. In Dallas, he had Dak Prescott’s arm and Mike McCarthy’s system working in his favor.

It’s not as if McCarthy and Prescott were failing to meet expectations. McCarthy was running a highly efficient offense and Prescott has been performing at an MVP-level pace as of late.

The film showed Cooks hadn’t lost a step. He was still getting in and out of breaks with ease and he appeared to still have the speed that made him special.

Interestingly enough, despite Cooks’ paltry numbers through the first eight games, the Cowboys 11 personnel group was producing the second best they have since Prescott joined the team in 2016. Nothing really made sense this season. Why was Cooks struggling?

Maybe there were too many cooks in the kitchen (shameless, I know). Maybe it’s CeeDee Lambs’ success that was impacting Cooks’ opportunities. Because when the lamb is so delicious, why cook anything else?

I promise, that’s the last one.

In what seemed like a conscious effort to get Cooks involved, the Cowboys offense is finally cooking here in Week 10 (I regret nothing).

If the Cowboys can get Cooks established as a viable threat this season, they would do wonders for their offense. Cooks has the kind of speed players like Michael Gallup, Jalen Tolbert and Lamb can only dream of. He pushes back the safeties and creates space inside for operators to operate.

Cooks offers a special level of fear to defenses. He can take any ball he touches home for six. Teams know they have to play him carefully. With Lamb’s level of dominance in recent weeks, defenses have had reason to devote extra resources to stop the Cowboys’ top threat. But the ramifications of allowing Cooks the ball in space is too great to hyperfocus on No. 88. Cooks’ emergence helps everyone.

Cooks appears to finally be a viable threat for Dallas and that means good things for the offense moving forward. Because when the Cowboys cook, everyone eats.

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Instant Analysis: Dak dominant in Cowboys’ 49-17 destruction of doomed Giants

The Cowboys continued to exert their dominance over the Giants, blowing out the division rival for the second time this season.

The Dallas Cowboys entered the game feeling good despite coming off a loss in their last contest. Over the last several weeks, the Mike McCarthy offense had started to come into their own. After starting the season with a ton of yards but an inability to score once they got into the red zone, the club had slowly started to improve. McCarthy took over play calling from Kellen Moore over the offseason, and with that, some growing pains were experienced in making some changes to how the offense flowed.

But over the last two weeks, even in the Week 9 loss to Philadelphia, the offense had shown signs of their prior dominance. QB Dak Prescott and WR CeeDee Lamb were playing at All-Pro levels. Second-year TE Jake Ferguson was morphing into a threat, as well. On Sunday, they were joined by free-agent acquisition Brandin Cooks and for the first time all year they truly unlocked their potential.

The result? An absolute demolition of the depleted New York Giants by the score of 49-17. The win improves the Cowboys to 6-3 on the season.

 

Look: Cowboys TE Jake Ferguson scores TD in 3rd-straight game

The Cowboys TE keeps making big plays, increasing his profile as Dak Prescott’s security blanket.

The Cowboys are taking what some may consider their own sweet time in putting a bowtie on the Giants, but the methodical approach is working. Dallas whiffed on their opening possession, driving the length of the field but failing to score on four opportunities from goal-to-go. They then went three and out but soon righted the ship.

A touchdown by CeeDee Lamb was followed by an interception off the arm of Dak Prescott, but the defense held the Giants on four plays from the 12-yard line. The offense went back to work and soon TE Jake Ferguson was getting his chance.

Dallas drove 96 yards down the field on the scoring drive, with the final play a one-yard touchdown pass on second down to Ferguson in the back of the end zone.

It’s the second-year tight end’s third-straight game with a score and his fourth on the young season. He’s become a true weapon for teh Dallas offense.

Watch: CeeDee Lamb gets Cowboys on board with his legs

CeeDee Lamb followed up his acrobatic catch with a scoring run to open things up for Dallas. Watch both.

CeeDee Lamb has been balling as a receiver over the last several weeks. His back-to-back 150-plus yard games have skyrocketed him up the leaderboard in the NFL. Dallas has answered his call to get him more involved in the offense over the last three weeks and they continued to do so on Sunday.

And while his receiving prowess is certainly on display in the Week 10 game against the New York Giants, the Cowboys got on the board thanks to Lamb harping back to his eight-grade running back days.

Greg Olsen called the play a tornado reverse, thanks to the distraction made on the end around that went to the right side for the score.

Earlier in the game, Lamb made an incredible one-handed catch while being interfered with.

Cowboys-Giants inactives: Turpin out, return of Deuce Vaughn

The Dallas Cowboys are without wide receiver Kavontae Turpin vs. the Giants while New York is missing multiple starters.

The Dallas Cowboys come in as massive favorites over the New York Giants, and the advantage grows in AT&T Stadium has nearly their whole arsenal active for a chance to sweep.

Dallas dominated the first matchup in MetLife Stadium with 40-point shutout to open the season. Now, New York is without their starting quarterback and will miss two key starters against the Cowboys in Week 10.

Right tackle Evan Neal is inactive, as well as cornerback Adoree’ Jackson for the already shorthanded Giants. On the flipside, Dallas’ main absence is wide receiver KaVontae Turpin, who is dealing with a shoulder injury.

A pair of rookies are in the lineup for the Cowboys with running back Deuce Vaughn and wide receiver Jalen Brooks active. Vaughn has been on the bench for several weeks after being rather ineffective as a ball carrier. Take a look at the inactives ahead of Cowboys-Giants, kicking off at 3:25 p.m., televised on FOX.

TV coverage maps, how to stream Cowboys-Giants, plus 10 top prop bets

Are you one of the few who will be screwed by the regional coverage rules? If you’re in red, you get to move ahead. If you’re in blue, here’s what you’ll need to do. | From @KDDrummondNFL

The Dallas Cowboys are once again America’s Game of the Week. After falling to the Philadelphia Eagles on the road in Week 9, the Cowboys return to the friendly confines of AT&T Stadium where they’ve won 11 games in a row. That’s the longest streak in the NFL currently and if Dallas is who they think they are, should not be challenged this week.

The mid-afternoon kickoff will begin the annual four-games-in-19-days gauntlet Dallas does every November with the back-to-back Sundays followed by back-to-back Thursday kickoffs. Dallas will likely need to sweep all four games if they hope to have any chance of winning the NFC East, already 2 games behind the Philadelphia Eagles in the loss column.

Dallas shouldn’t be looking past the Giants, but should rather be looking at them as the initial step up the stairway to where they want to be at the conclusion of the regular season. Here’s how to catch that action, and maybe get involved in some along the way.

Behind Enemy Lines: Cowboys-Giants rematch has NY media waving white flags?

After putting a shoe the size of Brian Daboll in his mouth in Week 1, has the Giants Wire editor come to his senses about the rematch? | From @KDDrummondNFL

New York City is a proud city with proud inhabitants, and it makes for fun banter anytime the Giants are on the Cowboys’ schedule. By fun, we mean delusional. Our enemy intel series, where we trade questions with the managing editor of the Dallas opponent for the week has brought some classic examples of a lack of self awareness. To a tee, every time we link up with Dan Benton, he has a ton of negatively skewed questions and euphoria-laced responses when we try to size each other’s teams up.

Has he learned his lesson? The Giants are struggling at 2-7 on the year, have lost their starting and backup quarterback and neither of them looked good anyway. The last time we spoke, Benton was highly confident Daniel Jones was the much better option to Dak Prescott, the Giants were on an elevator up and the Cowboys were in for a season of disapppointment. Then 40-0 happened. So we figured it’d be a good time to check in with Benton once again to see if his tune has changed from, well, this prior interview.

3 things Cowboys must do to avoid an upset against Giants in Week 10

If the Cowboys want to avoid an upset this week against the Giants, there are a few important things they must do, says @ReidDHanson.

The Cowboys are 17.5-point favorites over the division-rival, New York Giants in Week 10. It’s a spread that rivals many college football games and appears as the clearest sure thing Dallas has seen since Week 3 in Arizona.

But much like that torrid affair in the desert, this game has trap written all over it. Not only are the Cowboys still coming down from their nail-biter against the Eagles last Sunday, but they are early favorites in their next four games. Mentally chalking these up as automatic wins is a natural impulse they simply have to resist.

It all starts in Week 10. The Cowboys set the tone for the next four games on Sunday against New York. If they can stay focused on the task and do what they are expected to do, they can come out of the upcoming stretch smelling like roses.

But if they take it for granted and allow a wild card like the Giants to get the upset, the hole in their potential playoff seeding may be insurmountable. Here are three keys to avoiding getting upended.

55-man roster, Week 10 elevations reveal Cowboys need at LB

A look at the Cowboys’ roster they’ll choose to go to war with against the New York Giants in Week 10.

The Dallas Cowboys are all set to take on the New York Giants in Week 10, but had one last bit of housekeeping to tend to. Every Saturday, teams in play on Sunday are allowed to elevate up to two players from their practice squads to be on the game-day, 48-man roster.

While teams operate with 53 players, the trim down to 48 was instituted years ago to make things fair for teams suffering a large amount of injuries. The elevations, capped at three times per player, help further even the field. For Week 10, Dallas is elevating just one player for the second week in a row, Rashaan Evans.

The linebacker, signed a few weeks ago after Leighton Vander Esch was placed on IR with a neck injury, will be elevated for the third and final time. If Dallas wants to use him after this week, they’ll need to add him to the main roster. Speaking of which, here’s a look at everyone eligible for the contest.

Quarterbacks (3)
Running Backs (4)
Wideouts (6)
Tight Ends (3)
Offensive Tackles (3)
Offensive Guards (4)
Centers (2)

Defensive Ends (5)
Defensive Tackles (5)
Linebacker (4)
Cornerbacks (6)
Safeties (6)

Special Teams (3)