NFL Dallas Cowboys

Good Luck Stopping These Dallas Cowboys

Fresh Videos

By

Dez Bryant Dallas Cowboys

Getty Images

If this team can stay relatively healthy, then all I have to say is good luck to anyone who tries to stop the 2014 version of the Dallas Cowboys.

This Sunday’s game against the New York Giants showed exactly what teams are in for when they line up defensively against the Cowboys’ offensive front. Coming off of a game where everyone was patting them on the back and telling them how great they were for beating up the Seattle Seahawks in the home of the 12th man, it wouldn’t have surprised anyone had the Cowboys come out and laid an egg against a divisional opponent that knows them inside and out.

This was the quintessential letdown game. The team was coming off a big win, the Giants had just been shut out and embarrassed in Philadelphia, the Cowboys have a young team that doesn’t quite yet know how to handle all of the ups and downs that the NFL can throw at them, they don’t really have a true home-field advantage with rich corporate “fans” filling the seats, and they had the Joseph Randle Bling Ring incident in the mall.

But in spite of all of this, the team came out with a solid game plan and was clearly focused on the task at hand. Even after Tony Romo’s interception set up the go-ahead touchdown for the Giants in the first half, the Cowboys were committed to the run, utilizing that dominant offensive line and the bruising Demarco Murray in the backfield.

It didn’t matter if the Giants threw an eight-man front at them; they still ran the ball with frequency and success. The Cowboys sent a clear message to their opponents that anticipating them is fruitless — because they still cannot be stopped.

The second the safeties started to creep up a bit more to support the run and leave one-on-one coverage with the receivers, Romo would play action and hit either Dez Bryant or Terrance Williams deep for a big play, causing even more headaches for the defense. And this is what makes this offense so potent: if a team commits to stopping the run, the Cowboys can still run it at will. If an opponent sell out completely to stop Murray, Romo and those talented receivers can beat them deep.

But it doesn’t stop there; if the Cowboys are in a situation where they have to pass, they can use Bryant and Williams as decoys to draw the attention of the safeties over to them, then hit a wide-open Jason Witten or Gavin Escobar down the middle of the field for a big gain.

Having this many weapons on the field is what makes this offense so special. This team has always had a load of talent on the offensive side of the ball; the main issue with them is that they have never fully committed to the ground game. But once Jason Garrett and the organization got the necessary pieces in place to do so, you can see how it now affects every phase of the game in a positive manner.

The Cowboys can now control the clock and the flow of the game with this attack, and in the process help tire opposing teams’ defenses while keep their own off of the field. With this change in philosophy, this team can go a long way this year.

Kelly Anderson is a blogger for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @bgipp01 or add him to your network on Google.

Share Tweet
Trending Now on