It is a basic tenet in football to control the line of scrimmage. If you control the offensive and defensive line of scrimmage you can dictate the pace of the game. Your team builds off the success of your line. You just can’t win football games if you can’t control either line of scrimmage. Dallas learned that lesson on Sunday.
Dallas put up a pitiful performance early Sunday afternoon. They played uninspired. It is hard to say what the reason was. They were on a six-game winning streak. They won their last game with a backup quarterback at the helm. Are they reading to many of their own headlines? Is the Bronco’s the first team to figure them out? Whatever it is, they will have to turn it around quickly.
Dallas had to do an offensive line shuffle for Sunday’s game because Tyron Smith was out. It obviously didn’t work out because the Bronco’s front seven harried Dak Prescott from the beginning of the game. The Cowboys only managed 64 yards thru the air and 45 yards on the ground in the first half. Conversely, on defense they were gashed by the Bronco’s run game on 17 carries for 96 yards. The pass blocking of the Broncos allowed Terry Bridgwater to connect 12 of his 16 throws for 131 yards and a touchdown. That was the first half.
The rest of the game did not go well for the Cowboys. In fact, it was 30-0 with about 7 minutes to go in the game. The Cowboys really lost the game in the first half when on two different occasions they failed to convert on fourth down conversions. The Bronco’s turned those failures into points slowly building on their lead. It was an off day for the Cowboys. Hopefully it is not the beginning of a trend.
It is obvious that trading Von Miller had no effect on the Bronco’s locker-room. The Broncos came out and performed. They had a game plan for Sunday, and they executed it well. It appears the Bronco’s exploited one of the Dallas Cowboy’s weaknesses, their run defense. The Broncos controlled the clock and the tempo of the game gaining 190 yards and scoring two touchdowns on the ground. Bridgewater didn’t dink and dunk either. He had four throws over 15 yards, two of which were over 40-yard connections. The Dallas defense was lulled to sleep and stayed in bed most of the game.
This is a tough loss to swallow for the Cowboys. They have an opportunity to course correct next week with Atlanta coming to town. They will have to search themselves closely to see if this game was aberration, or a harbinger of things to come.
