By Jamal Baker
NDG Sports Writer
In what was a highly anticipated season opener, the Dallas Cowboys suffered a disappointing 28-20 loss to the New York Giants on Sunday Night Football at MetLife Stadium.
There is plenty of blame to go around but Dallas’s defensive performance looked eerily similar to what was put on tape much of last season—horrendous.
“I thought overall we were really, as a football team, we were pretty poor,” head coach Brian Schottenheimer said. “Just give coach Harbaugh and his team a bunch of credit. They were the more physical team tonight. That’s certainly not our standard. That’s certainly not how we see our identity playing.”
Led by quarterback Jaxson Dart, who threw for 230 yards and three touchdowns to go along with 54 yards rushing, the Giants were the more physical football team and went 9-of-11 (82%) on third-down conversions.
“It was definitely third down,” said Quinnen Williams on what went wrong. “I think we had a lot of third downs today and we didn’t get off the field — a bunch of them. I think we definitely gotta be critical [of ourselves] in our approach, when we get to [preparing for Week 2].
“And it’s a great week to learn, and to get things better.”
The Cowboys defense allowed 394 yards of total offense and did not consistently get pressure on Dart throughout the game. The Giants were able to successfully recycle a handful of play calls due to blown assignments and Cowboys players simply not knowing where to be.
“One of the things, not an excuse guys, we did not play well, but you got young players…” Schottenheimer said. “Those are going to happen. And we have to coach the young players better, but when you play young players, it’s part of the deal. And they need to learn quickly.”
New defensive coordinator Christian Parker’s debut did not go as planned but I feel like he will make the proper adjustments and have a better plan next week.
“I mean, at the end of the day, in football, it always just comes down to who does their job better,” said Caleb Downs. “We’ve got to do our jobs better — as a defense and as a team. We get that fixed, and we’ll be good. It’s always frustrating as a defense when you don’t get off the field.
“That’s part of the job, and we didn’t do it at a high level today. … We need to see what we did wrong, execute what we need to fix, and then go do it better next week.”
While the defense remains an area of concern, as I mentioned earlier, the offense is far from blameless.
From Dak Prescott’s costly interception that led to New York scoring before halftime, George Pickens’ critical drops and rushing for just 69 yards on 18 carries—the offense had a night that was nowhere to what they are capable of at their best.
“We didn’t play defense the way we’re capable of playing, we didn’t play offense in the first half the way we’re capable of playing, we dropped the ball, Schottenheimer said.”
Dallas will have their next opportunity to get in the win column when they host the Washington Commanders in their home opener Sunday at 3:25 p.m. CST.
