Chiefs 19, Dallas 9: 'Super Bowl Preview'? Cowboys Hope Not
Was Sunday's NFL Week 11 matchup between the NFC's Dallas Cowboys and the home-standing AFC's Kansas City Chiefs a "Super Bowl preview''?
The Cowboys had better hope not.
Chiefs 19, Cowboys 9 was about Kansas City getting up 9-0 early and then spending the rest of the afternoon at noisy, chilly Arrowhead Stadium enduring now-7-3 Dallas' day-long attempts to scale unscalable hills.
The Cowboys entered without offensive standouts Amari Cooper (COVID) and Tyron Smith (ankle), lost another offensive standout CeeDee Lamb (concussion at the end of the first half), and needed rookie Micah Parsons to do everything to pressure K.C. quarterback Patrick Mahomes, as Dallas is still waiting on defensive end standouts DeMarcus Lawrence and Randy Gregory to come off IR.
The Cowboys committed silly mistakes, as did the referees (Dallas was victimized by a booth review of a face mask, even though face-masking is non-reviewable), and didn't have the offensive coordination to match the defense's effort.
With 10 minutes left in the game, Dallas trailed 19-9. ... at which time the Chiefs missed a field goal that would've grown the edge.
In this circumstance, against this team, in this building, the Cowboys defense allowing 19 points to that point registers as a relative victory.
Having managed just three Greg Zuerlein field goals? That does not do the same for the offense.
But the score never moved again.
“It’s definitely frustrating for us, especially the way the defense played today,” said Zeke. “We have to be better for our defense.”
QB Dak Prescott (overseeing an offense that totaled just Cowboys managed only 276 yards of offense and didn't score a touchdown in loss to Chiefs. We'll do this again Thursday without Amari Cooper (COVID-19) and likely CeeDee Lamb (concussion).and his receivers (including Lamb while he was still playing) were disjointed. The offensive line, with Smith out and a new, young combo on the left side (tackle Terence Steele teaming with guard Connor McGovern) never figured out pass-rusher Chris Jones, who did the sort of damage Dallas coaches preached about all week. Ezekiel Elliott fought through a lower-leg issue and tried to keep grinding, but made no impact.
A postseason rematch with 7-4 Kansas City? That can still happen. But first, the Cowboys have a short Thanksgiving week before the Las Vegas Raiders come to DFW on Thursday. Are they up to that task?
The Cowboys had better hope so.
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