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Goodness gracious, that was not fun.
The Dallas Cowboys lost by 10 points to the Green Bay Packers, but that doesn’t tell the story of the total beatdown that they took on Sunday. What a wretched performance.
It’s one thing to lose in the NFL. It’s another thing to get blasted. It’s a totally different thing to get completely wrecked in your own stadium by the team that is notoriously your kryptonite.
There were winners and losers. Let’s sort through this.
Winner: Aaron Rodgers
He owns the Dallas Cowboys. There’s no way around it.
Things with him are at the point where it just feels predestined. He’s going to find a way to beat the Cowboys and do so in a painful manner. He didn’t throw any touchdowns, but he made big play after big play. It sucked.
Winner: Aaron Jones
He had four touchdowns. Four. The first time that anybody ever did that against the Dallas Cowboys. He ran all over them and left Leighton Vander Esch whiffing all over the place.
The Wolf Hunter has hardly been the player that he was his rookie season. That’s become a huge problem for the heart of the defense.
Winner: Brandon Knight
There obviously weren’t a lot of winners on the Cowboys side of the ball, but you know what, Brandon Knight did not do terribly filling in for La’el Collins.
It’s a big thing to be asked to jump into an NFL game at a moment’s notice and to do it against one of the league’s better pass rushes, but Knight held his own. Good for him.
Winner: Michael Gallup
Considering he was returning from surgery just a few weeks ago, heck considering nothing, Michael Gallup had himself quite the game.
Michael Gallup’s last 7 games:
— Connor Livesay (@ConnorNFLDraft) October 7, 2019
• 7 - 113 - 1
• 6 - 68 - 0
• 7 - 158 - 0
• 6 - 119 - 0
• 2 - 18 - 1
• 3 - 50 - 0
• 3 - 53 - 1
He is a star.
Winner: Narratives
The Dallas Cowboys have three wins and two losses and you know the teams that they have all come against.
This, of course, continues to feed the narrative that the Cowboys are only beating bad teams while losing to the good ones. Until they do something to change this it’s fair game for everyone to talk about.
Loser: Dak Prescott
While Dak pumped up his stat sheet when the Cowboys were trying to come back, the facts are that he made some regrettable decisions.
It’s hard to put the first (Amari’s drop) or third (Kevin King mauling Gallup) interceptions totally on him, but the second one was atrocious. What’s more is that Dak could have turned the ball over in different moments but was bailed out by penalties from Green Bay.
Ultimately there are problems with the Cowboys that are of much higher priority than their quarterback, but he needs to be better.
Loser: Amari Cooper
Let’s be clear here, Amari Cooper is a superstar. He’s so undeniably talented and literally had a career-high in terms of yardage against the Packers.
With all of that being said, one “whoopsie” can wipe out a million “atta boys” and Cooper’s whoopsie came early on when a ball went through his hands that ended up as an interception for the Packers.
Amari Cooper on his thoughts before this drop: I got it. That's what I was thinking. Those are the first few words in football. Felt like I had it, it was an easy catch. Took my eyes off of it because I was focused on the touchdown. And I dropped it and it created a turnover. https://t.co/OG32dSQkMU
— RJ Ochoa (@rjochoa) October 7, 2019
Cooper’s drop set the tone for the entire game it felt like. He’s a winner, but this game puts him on the loser list.
Loser: Leighton Vander Esch
Obviously you knew this was coming if you read the winners... where is the Wolf Hunter?
Aaron Jones destroyed LVE play in and play out on Sunday, we’re hardly seeing the guy that challenged for DROY a season ago.
You just don't usually see LVE get bullied like this... pic.twitter.com/sCVSSmmzm5
— Bobby Belt (@BobbyBeltTX) October 7, 2019
This is gross.
Loser: Cam Fleming
Filling in for Tyron Smith isn’t exactly easy, and while he didn’t have any sort of Chaz Green performance, Cam Fleming did not have the greatest game at left tackle.
It doesn’t help matters that the Cowboys took on the Smiths from Green Bay, but Dak Prescott was under duress for a lot of the game and took some critical sacks, including some on third down.
Please get well, Tyron.
Loser: Officiating
The Dallas Cowboys lost and have no one to blame except for themselves, but wow, officiating was awful in this game.
There were plenty of missed calls that went both ways against Dallas and Green Bay, as mentioned there was a sequence that kept the game alive for the Cowboys, but that shouldn’t be happening to a multi-billion dollar company.
Fix it. Now. Please.