Less than an hour after stepping out of the ring, with the marks of a three-hour heavyweight fight still on him, Dak Prescott had every right to take all the criticism thrown at him over the previous five days. with him on the podium.
Instead, it went the other way.
“Let’s start with the interception,” Prescott told the assembled media room.
The 29-year-old quarterback went on to explain that he underestimated the length of Eagles rusher Josh Sweat, who landed Prescott’s throw from close range and then ran it 42 yards to pay for the dirt. It happened less than six minutes into the game and put the Eagles ahead 10-0. That followed a seven-play, 68-yard drive Philadelphia quarterback Gardner Minshew designed to start the game.
It was also an interesting thing for Prescott to bring up first, on the heels of a career game in a very big spot at AT&T Stadium on Christmas Eve. And it’s indicative of where Dallas is right now, as it chases Philly and ranks in the NFC — the Cowboys’ best players aren’t just really, really good. They are also responsible, and you saw that this week after a win, just like you did a week ago after a to crush loss to the Jaguars.
“I mean, Dak does his thing, no matter what,” jack-of-all-trades linebacker Micah Parsons told me over the phone as he left the locker room after the game. “If you give him the racing game, he’s going to take the racing game. If you give him the game pass and the chance to throw it, he will throw it. We have one of the best quarterbacks in the league, and he just showed it here today.
He showed more than that.
The Cowboys, team-wide, did too.
Is it a 10-0 deficit? Choice six? Learned from. Treat with. Compartmentalized. And Prescott wasn’t the only star with a star on his helmet showing that kind of resilience and competitiveness on Saturday afternoon.
That’s why the Cowboys came away with a 40-34 win and a different outlook on them for a while.
Dallas needed its best players to step up; Lamb and Prescott answered the call.
Kevin Jairaj / USA TODAY Sports
Given the Christmas weekend schedule, we get to you a day early on Cowboys-Eagles. Come on Monday, you will also have…
• How the Bengals showed their meat in the face of a meltdown.
• Why the Bills stayed an extra night in downtown Chicago.
• Where the Panthers reshaped their identity.
• What you will do to get the Sunday Ticket in 2023.
• Who you will watch in the college football playoffs.
But we’re kicking off this week’s MMQB column with a special early Sunday morning post of our lead for Week 16, focusing on the big step the Cowboys seem to be taking.
There were a number of points of emphasis for the Cowboys defense this week, but the overall theme for the group was very much the same as for the offense. Just as Prescott and the offense traded a grueling six-overtime pick to the Jaguars, the defense allowed Jacksonville to go 41 yards and set up an overtime-forcing field goal in just over a minute. So this week, players would be judged on difficult situations.
That’s why, while he wasn’t particularly happy with how it materialized, the hair on the back of Dallas defensive coordinator Dan Quinn’s neck stood up when he saw that his unit would have the chance to hold the line, when Minshew spiked the ball to the Dallas 19 with 33 seconds left, after a spectacular catch from DeVonta Smith for 22 yards and a first down.
“That was the moment I was actually hoping we were getting to, because you can’t really say you’ve learned or improved until you’re in that moment again,” Quinn says. . And here we are tonight, at this time again to approach it. … Awarding a basket at the end of regulation against Jacksonville really pissed us off to say, Hey, when you have someone there, you have to take them into deep water and finish them off.
So I said, We won’t prove we’ve done it until you’re in that moment again.”
And then they proved it.
On the second and 10th, with 33 seconds left, Parsons came out the right edge, forcing Minshew into the pocket where Dorance Armstrong Jr. took the lead. looped and broke free, eventually raising his arms to force a high throw from Minshew. The ball also came too high for Smith, who was waiting for it deep in the end zone.
On the third and 10, with 27 seconds left, Parsons misstepd on the outside then burst inside, going right through left tackle Jordan Mailata and onto the lap of Minshew. The sneaky quarterback was able to escape, but Parsons chased and forced a throwaway.
Then finally, on the fourth and 10, Armstrong’s first burst into the backfield lost Minshew his spot and influenced a rushing, off-balance throw down the sideline to AJ Brown, who found himself in a team meeting in Dallas – no less than five Cowboys defensemen were in close proximity to the Eagles star.
Now, here’s how the coaches really saw the Cowboys respond to the bell: While Dallas faked the pressure on that last snap by crowding the line with seven guys, on those three plays the defense came with a standard four-man run. . Nothing fancy, nothing exotic. It was, more or less, Quinn telling his guys to beat the other guys, a nice vote of confidence for those pass rushers when the “other guys” happen to be the best offensive line in the NFL.
Dallas, in fact, didn’t add any extra rushers, period, on the Eagles’ last possession.
“Yeah, we just had to be relentless,” Parsons says. We had become one of the best; No, I mean, we’re one of the best D-lines in the world. And we had to show it here today in the endgame situation.
Which only made everything that happened in the previous three hours at AT&T Stadium stand out.
Dallas’ defense forced Philadelphia’s offense to make long drives to come away with points.
Kevin Jairaj / USA TODAY Sports
Strange as it may seem for a game in which the Cowboys’ defense had 27 points (seven of the Eagles’ points, again, came on pick six), this unit ticked a lot of its boxes.
The tackle was a big deal, with all the movement and space the Eagles created, and Dallas’ ability to hold Philly to just 87 yards on 29 carries was proof that the message got through. Quinn and his players also wanted to limit explosive plays and force the Eagles to drive the field, and Philly needed seven, 10, 10, 10 and 13 plays across his five practices, two of which ended in field goals. .
And then there were the four turnovers. Two were picks where Jayron Kearse and DaRon Bland outplayed their guys for the ball. Another was that Kearse was where he needed to be to salvage a botched trade between Minshew and Boston Scott. And the last was generated in the fourth quarter, with Dallas up just 37-34, and Philly starting new possession, with Parsons creating havoc in the backfield and defensive lineman Carlos Watkins diving into the mess to strike. the Eagles loose ball. star Miles Sanders.
“They ran like a tackle play, tried to get the ball out, rubbed me and the ball was exposed,” Parsons said. And our guy just came in and hit him from behind. What a big game, super big game. … I mean, the focus is the same every week, and it’s just to get the ball back. Some games the ball rolls in your direction, sometimes it doesn’t, but today the ball was rolling in our direction. Kudos to the football gods.
But that wouldn’t mean much if Prescott and the Dallas offense couldn’t take advantage of it.
They would prove they could. And just as Parsons was making plays on his side of the ball, Dallas’ best players were making them on offense, namely Prescott and CeeDee Lamb (who finished with 10 catches for 120 yards and two touchdowns).
Yes, Prescott threw the pick-six. But folding that one, the first pitch he made that hit the ground was his last of the first half. Outside of that miss and interception, he was 16 of 16 for 168 yards and a touchdown, that touchdown being a 36-yarder on which he found Lamb running open on a corner road through a dead spot in an area. of the Eagles.
The two scored shots he made in the second half were even more impactful. On the first, he rushed to the left and found Michael Gallup crossing the front of the end zone, right in his sight. That tied it at 27 at the end of the third quarter. His next, a seven-yard dime on a corner fade to Lamb, tied him again at 34 and set the stage for the Cowboys to find out – to borrow Quinn’s phrase – if they could swim in deep water, a week after they’ drowned in it.
“Really, every loss is a chance to learn and improve,” Parsons says. “Losing loved ones sucks, but there’s always something you can look at and learn from.”
From there, at 34-34, and with less than six minutes remaining, Bland’s interception led to the go-ahead field goal; Watkins’ punch led to another field goal from Brett Maher to give the Cowboys a 40-34 cushion. Prescott was 27 for 35 for 347 yards and three scores, the interception and a 124 rating. ,3.
Then the defense shut things down. Which, more than anything, proved that the team had learned from the Jags game.
“I think when we saw the movie, similar things came up today, things that we could do better, things that hurt us over time,” Parsons said. We fixed it today. And I’m super excited for the guys, that we got to dump this one. Similar situation last week, but we were able to finish this game, so I’m happy to have learned from our mistakes. …
“Just our heart, our relentlessness and the will not to give up, through the Texans [a last-minute win in Week 14]the Jags, this game, it’s been close, but we have to keep making progress towards the playoffs and start playing our best football.
And that’s why, at the end of it, although he could prove that these Cowboys were perhaps tougher and tougher than some of their recent Dallas predecessors, there was still the reminder that gives to ponder that the Eagles remain two games away in the NFC East. And that means with two weeks to go, the Cowboys will likely have to hit the road in the playoffs to pursue their goals.
But it also allowed Dallas to keep its eyes on the prize. So when I asked Parsons about winning this game, gaining ground in the East, and avenging the Cowboys’ loss to Philly in mid-October, really, he didn’t have everything of this one.
“No, all we do is get the trophy,” he replies quickly. That’s what we think about. We don’t worry about rivalries. All we think about is getting the trophy.
Like everyone else, on that front, the Cowboys still have a long way to go.
But Saturday was a nice step in that direction.
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