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The Dallas Cowboys shocked the world on Sunday afternoon by defeating the reigning AFC Champions, the Cincinnati Bengals.
As we move forward this season the Bengals will have to ponder life at 0-2, deal with all of the stories surrounding playoff odds when starting with that record, so on and so forth. That must suck!
We discussed the game in greater detail on our official Dallas Cowboys Postgame Show on the Blogging The Boys podcast network. Make sure to subscribe to our network so you don’t miss any of our shows! Apple devices can subscribe here and Spotify users can subscribe here.
Thankfully we don’t have to live that life as Dallas Cowboys fans because as a result of Sunday’s victory the sun is shining, birds are singing, and the fall weather feels oh so wonderful.
There are a lot of things to clean up for the Cowboys, such is life in the NFL. There were both good things and bad things to come from Sunday’s game which is what we are here to discuss.
As we do every week we have put together our Stock Report here at Blogging The Boys.
Let’s begin.
Stock Up: Micah Parsons
We are truly running out of things to say.
Micah Parsons has four (!) sacks already on the season and almost singlehandedly willed the Cowboys to victory on Sunday. He is as game-changer-y of a player as there is in the National Football League today and that includes both offensive and defensive players.
It is no longer a matter of if Parsons is going to make a game-changing play, but a matter of how many. We have waited through some dark days for a player of this magnitude to patrol the Cowboys defense and with Dan Quinn moving this proverbial queen on the chess board every other piece is always in trouble.
Stock Up: Cooper Rush
The Cowboys are now 2-0 (another exclamation point!) with Cooper Rush under center. What is this life?!
We are so used to the Cowboys regressing and wilting when backup quarterbacks play for them. To be fair here, Rush had some passes that were near interceptions, but he also had some that were right on the money. He did what he had to do, especially near the end, and orchestrated a much-needed win against a really great team.
Stock Up: Noah Brown
The Cowboys are entitled to a victory lap here. They believed.
Many have been screaming, myself included, for the Cowboys to address a perceived lack of depth at wide receiver and all the way through it all they relied on Noah Brown saving them when the going was set to get tough.
Brown finished the Bengals game with five catches for 91 yards and a touchdown. When we look back on this it should be remembered as The Noah Brown Game™️ more than anything else because of how reliable he was on offense.
Stop me if you predicted Noah being the best receiver in a game that featured Ja’Marr Chase, CeeDee Lamb, and Tee Higgins.
Stock Up: Dorance Armstrong
We threw a party up above for Micah Parsons and a big reason for that was the two sacks that he ripped off against Cincinnati. Well another defender had two sacks as well.
Dorance Armstrong was retained this offseason and on Sunday he showed a big reason why. We know that the Cowboys have a stellar edge rusher in DeMarcus Lawrence, but they need whoever is opposite of him to make plays. Armstrong certainly did that.
Stock Up: Brett Maher
Brett Maher has made every single kick in his return to the Cowboys, including the game-winner on Sunday afternoon.
Does this mean that he will never miss again? Of course not. But it is clear that Maher did improve in his time away from the Cowboys, and while the organization went about finding a kicker in a weird process through training camp, they ultimately settled on someone who has turned out to be fairly reliable.
Who saw this coming?!
Stock Up: Tony Pollard
Those advocating for Tony Pollard to touch the ball more were rewarded on Sunday. TP finished with a team-leading 4.8 YPC and also had the longest reception of the day, a 46-yard play that he took down to the goal line, where he eventually punched it in for the team’s second touchdown.
All told Pollard got 13 touches on Sunday and was a significant contributor to the offense. Not to be ungrateful, but we need more. We demand more. Give us more, Moore.
Stock Up: The Offensive Line
We have long expected the Cowboys to have problems along the offensive line but that shoe has yet to really drop. Things were stable against the Buccaneers and they were totally fine against the Bengals. Cooper Rush was only sacked one single time compared to Joe Burrow’s six.
While the process of how we got here was questionable at best, the Cowboys absolutely seem to have a future left tackle in Tyler Smith. Heck, he is quite the present left tackle.
All told this group is holding up well for now and we now have a good problem in figuring out what happens next when Jason Peters is ready to play (move Tyler inside in my opinion).
Stock Up: Trevon Diggs
There was some very light trash talk directed at Trevon Diggs this week by Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase, but the Cowboys’ CB1 answered the challenge in resounding fashion.
Chase finished with five catches for 54 yards off of nine targets. He hardly went off in the way that many expected him to and Diggs deserves some amount of credit for that.
What’s more is that many of Diggs’ detractors accuse him of not being physical. Late in this game he had an extremely physical third-down stop, one of the harder hits throughout the game.
He is evolving as a player even if the turnovers aren’t there.
Stock Down: Team Penalties
The Cowboys breathed life into not one, but two Bengals drives that were otherwise about to end. Simply put that cannot happen.
When the Cowboys had all of those penalties in the preseason against the Denver Broncos many noted how they were committed by players who would not be on the team yet here we are with these things happening.
The Cowboys won on Sunday, but they should take away important lessons like these and build on them for the future.
Stock Down: Dalton Schultz
If you turn the ball over then odds are you will wind up in stock down. Unfortunately Schultz did and almost gave the game away given the fact that Dallas was about to score in all likelihood by some way before he fumbled.
Cincinnati gave the ball right back to Dallas after Schultz’s fumble and again the Cowboys won so no harm was truly done. But fumbles are a no-no. Everybody knows that.
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