Tag: Good Bad & Ugly

Good, Bad, Ugly: Prescott’s legs, McCarthy’s clock snafu dominate Week 6 win

From @ToddBrock24f7: Dak Prescott saved the run game, but the defense was uncharacteristically sloppy. Mike McCarthy’s time management comes into question again.

The Cowboys’ 20-17 win over the Chargers on Monday Night Football was undoubtedly good. It washed out the nasty taste left behind by last week’s West Coast visit, it sent Dallas into their bye week with positive momentum, and it helped the club gain some ground on both the Eagles and the 49ers within the NFC after both those squads lost on Sunday.

But the squeaker at SoFi featured plenty of both bad and ugly, too. Mike McCarthy’s offense is still bewildering to watch, with a preponderance of running plays that sent Tony Pollard charging hopelessly right up Tyler Biadasz’s backside on early downs and forcing Dak Prescott into way too many third-and-long situations. And both the defense and special teams managed to shoot themselves in the foot as well, leaving plenty to clean up in all three phases over the team’s week off.

Here’s a recap of what went well, what went poorly, and what made fans go huh? in Week 6.

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Good, bad and ugly: Cowboys’ Prescott claimed to be motivated, he was not

There was too much bad and ugly football from the Cowboys in their Week 5 embarrassing loss to the 49ers. | From @KDDrummondNFL

This isn’t what the Dallas Cowboys envisioned when they talked all week how facing San Francisco was a measuring stick game. The 49ers embarrassed the Cowboys, 42-10, on Sunday Night Football and left no doubt how far away Dallas is from being Super Bowl contenders.

It didn’t take long for the 49ers to establish themselves as the better team, scoring on their first possession and shutting down the Cowboys’ offense for most of the first half.  The 49ers dominated on both sides of the ball and took full advantage of sloppy mistakes from Mike McCarthy’s team. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly in a disappointing loss to the 49ers in Week 5.

Good, bad and ugly: Red-zone play ruins Cowboys’ perfect performance vs Pats

The defense and special teams led the way for the Dallas Cowboys as they dominated the New England Patriots 38-3 in the Week 4 win. | From @BenGrimaldi

The Dallas Cowboys did not take to losing their first game of the season well, bouncing back by blowing out the New England Patriots, 38-3, in Week 4. In dominating, the Cowboys handed Bill Belichick the worst loss of his coaching career in a game where the future Hall of Famer had a chance for his 300th career victory.

It was a win that followed a familiar script for the Cowboys. Get a lead, aided by the defense, and then suffocate the opponent by forcing them into mistakes. Dallas’ defense did their part per usual, and the offense once again had an efficient outing moving the ball and putting points on the scoreboard.

Just a week after a poor performance, the Cowboys answered their critics by doing something rarely done, routing the Patriots. Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly for the Cowboys in a Week 4 win.

Good, bad and ugly in Cowboys’ Week 3 loss to Cardinals

From @BenGrimaldi: Red zone failures and penalties highlighted an ugly 28-16 loss by the Dallas Cowboys to the Arizona Cardinals in Week 3.

The Dallas Cowboys suffered their first loss of the season with a putrid performance against the Arizona Cardinals, falling 28-16.

Coming into the game, the Cowboys were without three starters on the offensive line, but they were still expected to beat the Cardinals, who were 0-2 on the year. As always with this franchise, though, expect the unexpected.

The Cowboys lost on Sunday, but their frustrating week began with the news of cornerback Trevon Diggs’ injury. It’s difficult to know if losing Diggs for the year took a toll on the team emotionally, but Dallas didn’t look anything like the team they had been over the first two weeks of the season.

Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly in 28-16 defeat at the hands – well, feet – of the Cardinals.

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Good, Bad, Ugly: Cowboys’ Week 17 positives challenged by two things that can derail season

The Cowboys are a good team, so there are always positives. But two things threatening their season popped up yet again. | From @BenGrimaldi

The Dallas Cowboys won their 12th game of the season after outlasting the banged-up Tennessee Titans, 27-13. With the Week 17 win, the Cowboys have won 12 games in back-to-back years for the first time since their championship years from 1992 through 1995. Not bad for a team that lost their starting quarterback in Week 1 for five weeks and were left for dead.

When the 2022 schedule was originally released, this game appeared to be a matchup of two playoff teams that would help determine postseason positioning. That was still the case a month ago, even but the matchup lost much of its shine with the Titans sitting some of their best players, including running back Derrick Henry. Tennessee was also turning to their third-string quarterback, Josh Dobbs, as they knew the results of this game didn’t matter in their pursuit of a division title.

Dallas didn’t have time to be worried about who the Titans had available; they just needed to win and keep pressure on the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC East race. The Cowboys got the victory despite some bumps in the road along the way. Here are the good, the bad, and the ugly from the Week 17 win.

Good, Bad, Ugly: Situational football cost Cowboys the most vs Jaguars

The Cowboys choked away another game, blowing a 17-point lead. What’s to blame? Several things, but there was a bit of good, too. | From @BenGrimaldi

The Dallas Cowboys gave away yet another game in the 2022 season where they had a double-digit lead in the second half to a team with a losing record. That’s extremely embarrassing.

This is what the Cowboys of the 21st century have become; an organization that stumbles its way through seasons and finds new ways to lose. After blowing another game, and now sitting with a record of 10-4, the Cowboys don’t feel like a team on the brink of competing for a Super Bowl. Dallas feels more like a team that is about to implode with another late-season swoon.

Players may change, and coaches may change, but the results for the Cowboys haven’t.

There was no reason the Cowboys should have lost this game. Up 27-10 in the third quarter, yet here the team was to remind everyone again, that nothing is a given with the Cowboys.

Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly in the Week 15 disaster.

Good, bad and ugly as Cowboys eek out win over Texans, 27-23

The Dallas Cowboys played their best when they needed it to avoid the upset versus the Houston Texans, scoring late in the 27-23 in Week 14. | From @BenGrimaldi

The Dallas Cowboys needed an epic, late-game drive on Sunday to beat in-state rival Houston, 27-23. It was a contest that went down to the wire, with the Cowboys playing one of their worst games of the season but finding a way to win in the end.

Wins don’t need to be pretty, they just need to happen, and the Cowboys put another ‘W’ in the left-hand column on their record. It was ugly and it took almost the entire 60 minutes to put away the one-win Texans, but a late rushing score from running back Ezekiel Elliott gave Dallas a lead they would need just seconds to secure.

This was the type of game that gives haters pause in believing in the Cowboys, who are now 10-3 on the season. It would have been an embarrassing loss for Mike McCarthy’s team, but they found a way to pull out the victory.

Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly from the performance.

Good, bad, ugly from Cowboys’ 49-29 victory over Chicago Bears

Contain the QB? Nope. Contain the run game? Nope. So exactly how did Dallas still have their largest win of the season? @BenGrimaldi breaks it all down.

The Dallas Cowboys had their first offensive explosion of the season in their 49-29 routing of the Chicago Bears. Quarterback Dak Prescott returned to the form that made him an MVP candidate in the first half of 202, also utilizing his legs to keep the chains moving in the Cowboys’ sixth win of the 2022 campaign.

This was a game where it seemed like the Cowboys had the game well in hand, but allowed the Bears to stick around with some sloppy play. Luckily, the Cowboys had the right answers, which included Prescott and running back Tony Pollard, to keep the Bears playing from behind.

It wasn’t a fun day for the defense, who were gashed in the running game once again. The unit made enough plays though, despite fighting through some injuries and misfortunes. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly as Dallas won their second game in a row, and heads to their much-needed bye week at 6-2.

Good, Bad & Ugly from Cowboys’ 24-6 victory over Lions

Prescott’s return, evaluation of the playcalling and a rookie gets on the ledger. All part of the process judged by @BenGrimaldi as Dallas moved to 5-2.

The Dallas Cowboys survived a scare from the one-win Detroit Lions and won in quarterback Dak Prescott’s return from injury. It wasn’t as pretty as the 24-6 score suggested and it took some fortuitous bounces for the Cowboys to earn the victory but getting to five wins is all that mattered.

The Cowboys held the Lions out of the end zone and forced five turnovers to aid a pedestrian offense that did just enough to win the game. Prescott and the offense showed some rust, but the defensive effort put forth once again led the way.

No matter if it’s Cooper Rush or Prescott under center, Dallas’ defense continues to rise to the occasion. Winning ugly is better than losing pretty, and that’s exactly how the team will feel walking away with a 5-2 record.

Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly for the Cowboys in the win over the Lions in Week 7.

Wild-card round good, bad, ugly: Cowboys failed in myriad of ways vs 49ers

The Cowboys couldn’t overcome a bad game plan and poor discipline in their wild card loss to the San Francisco 49ers. | From @BenGrimaldi

Another season, another disappointing ending for the Dallas Cowboys. This year it came at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers, in a home wild-card round playoff game, 23-17.

In a contest where the Cowboys had to play their best football in order to save their season, they played undisciplined and uninspired. In a win or go home situation, in a game where they had yet another chance to show they were a different version of the Cowboys than the last 25 iterations, they demonstrated that although the players and coaches were different, nothing really had changed.

The 49ers beat the Cowboys as much as the Cowboys beat themselves in a tough-to-watch playoff performance.

Winning the NFC East was fun, as was winning six straight and making Cowboys Nation believe things were different this year. In the end, though, it was the same type of issues that had plagued the Cowboys all year that got them dismissed from the playoffs. Bad penalties at the worst times and an offense that never found their rhythm cost Dallas their season.

Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly from the Cowboys’ wild card loss to the 49ers.