It doesn’t take a football savant to recognize the offensive line for the Dallas Cowboys was beaten like a drum on Sunday night against the Los Angeles Rams. Quarterback Dak Prescott was under a seemingly endless barrage of pressure led by defensive tackle, and two-time Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald.
Luckily for Dallas, they won’t face him again in the regular season. Unluckily, the Cowboys are still missing right tackle La’el Collins for at least the next two weeks and there’s, for the first time in a long time, serious concern about the offensive line.
Pro Football Focus released their key takeaways from Week 1 and part of it reads like a hit piece on the Cowboys:
Led by Aaron Donald, the Los Angeles Rams caused Dak Prescott to play under fire throughout their Week 1 matchup. He was under pressure on 19 dropbacks, the second-most of the week. When a quarterback is under pressure that much, not many good things are going to happen for the offense … As a whole, the Dallas offensive line was the third-lowest graded unit of the day and lost the third-most reps.
As a whole, the Dallas offensive line was the third-lowest graded unit of the day and lost the third-most reps. Tackle Tyron Smith and center Joe Looney didn’t play poorly, as they earned pass-block grades of 77.3 and 69.1, respectively, but the other three (Connor Williams, Zack Martin and Terence Steele) offensive linemen struggled. All three were either beaten by a defender or allowed a pressure on six or more pass-block reps. While the Cowboys won’t face a player like Donald every week — and Martin is likely to bounce back, given he was the highest-graded active guard in pass protection from 2014-19 — Williams and Steele are two reasons to worry, especially with facing Grady Jarrett in Week 2.
It used to be these exact pieces praising the best line in football. Father time has taken its toll on the unit. Tyron Smith and Zack Martin both turn 30 this year. Travis Frederick retired. Combine that with the underwhelming play by 2018 second-round pick Connor Williams and it’s suddenly a group that has ugly warts.
Prior to the game, the football world was shocked to hear that right tackle would be manned by UDFA rookie Terence Steele from Texas Tech, and not veteran Cam Erving who was signed to be the swing tackle this past spring.
If the Cowboys weren’t pleased with Steele’s performance, they lost the opportunity to go with Erving when the latter sprained his MCL on special teams duty. When it rains it pours, even under the canopy of SoFi Stadium.
There’s no reason to expect it to be this bad for the entire year, but a team’s season can go south in a hurry if this specific issue doesn’t get fixed. Week 1 was a flat out reminder that nothing gold stays in the NFL, not even the Dallas Cowboys offensive line.
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