Cowboys Ball Security? More Than 'Cuss & Pray’
FRISCO - After the Dallas Cowboys' miraculous Week 2 win over Atlanta that was low-lighted in part by Dallas' four first-quarter fumbles, coach Mike McCarthy was asked for his thoughts at the time and in reflection.
"No, I have never seen anything like that,'' McCarthy said, jokingly adding in his conversation with 105.3 The Fan, "I said some bad words and I prayed.''
Ah, if only "cussing and praying'' worked.
The Cowboys enter a Week 4 visit from Cleveland with but a 1-2 record for, among other reasons, ball-security sloppiness. They had the dropsies in a Week 1 loss at the Rams, Against Atlanta, all those fumbles had to be overcome. In a Week 3 loss at Seattle, Dallas was responsible for two interceptions a mishandled kickoff return and the sure-handed Ezekiel Elliott's hat trick of three dropped passes.
Include the fact that Dallas' "aggressiveness'' has meant 3-of-7 on fourth-down conversion tries - a "turnover'' of a sort - and you begin to realize why there is so much pressure on this offense to score 40 points every week, and so much field-position pressure on this defense to even survive.
This can be a "we'' thing. As QB Dak Prescott said after the resilience shown in the 40-39 win over the Falcons, "We put ourselves as players in a hole by not taking care of the ball, so we had to go out there and just stay at it - stay believing in the game plan, stay believing in one another.''
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This can be an individual thing. Elliott dropped those passes on Sunday vs. the Seahawks - the first time with multiple drops in the same game in his NFL career - and seems acutely bothered by that, and what a difference those might've made in what became a 38-31 loss.
"I've just got to focus, lock in and catch the football,'' Zeke said.
This can also be a coaching thing. After the Atlanta fumble-itis game, the very next Cowboys practice here inside The Star features staffers wearing boxing gloves in a drill in which they punched as Dallas ball-carriers.
There are certain things the Cowboys do very well when the football isn't bouncing around freely. They are tied for the NFL lead with 18 plays of 20-or-more yards. With Prescott at the helm, they have the most passing yards (1,118) in the NFL. With rookie CeeDee Lamb in the lead, they have the most yards after the catch (510) in the NFL this season.
They produce points at a rate of almost anybody, yards more than anybody (No. 1 at 490.7 per) and they even do in a "fast-and-vast'' way that statistically buried last year's high-scoring Cowboys (Dallas is averaging 76.7 offensive plays per game this season, up 10 from 2019).
But ... in turnover ratio? At minus-4, Dallas is the third-poorest club in the NFL.
"Turnovers,'' McCarthy said this week, "are something you can control.''
That non-control of ball-control is why they're 1-2.
And some of it has been delivered in such a bizarre fashion that it's easy to imagine why Elliott and company see the overall problem as fixable.
“I don’t think we’re frustrated,'' Zeke said. "It’s early in the season. We have a lot of football left. I don’t think there is any reason to panic. I think we just have to keep getting better week-in and week-out. It’s important this week. We got to get back on track.”
Ball security may be the most important issue of all for the Dallas Cowboys to work on. To cuss about. To pray about.
