Cowboys at Giants: The good, the bad, and the ugly from Week 1

What a way for the Dallas Cowboys to start the 2023 season! They came out and completely dominated the New York Giants in Week 1, and in so doing, extended Dak Prescott's consecutive win streak against the Giants to 11 in a row, and also ended Mike McCarthy's 0-3 record in the season opener since becoming the head coach of the Cowboys.

The 40-0 victory was as dominant of a performance as we've seen from the Dallas Cowboys in decades. They were clearly the more talented and better team on the field Sunday night in all three phases the game. Hopefully they can make this kind of dominant play a consistent thing week after week throughout the 2023 NFL season.

With the Cowboys’ Week 1 now in the books, we can take a few days to reflect on how absolutely domineering the Cowboys were in the season opener before setting our sights on their Week 2 opponent, the New York Jets. Before we completely move on to Aaron Rodgers and Company next week, let's take a look at the good, bad, and ugly for the Cowboys from Sunday Night Football.

THE GOOD - Hitting the trifecta

Shout out to the three players (Noah Igbinoghene, Stephon Gilmore, Brandin Cooks) the Cowboys traded for who all made an impact against the Giants, but the trifecta we are talking about here is how Dallas dominated in all three phases the game in this Week 1 matchup. The defense absolutely humiliated Daniel Jones and Company, Dak Prescott and the offense were pretty much mistake free playing with a banged up offensive line, and special teams wise they also impacted the game in a big way. It's a rarity in the NFL to hit the trifecta by scoring a touchdown in all three phases, but they able were to do just that in prime time on Sunday night.

THE BAD - Micah Parsons and Company

We mean ‘bad’ as in ‘good’. Hats off to Dan Quinn, Micah Parsons, and the rest of the Dallas Cowboys defense. This defensive unit was better than advertised, which is saying something because heading into the season opener they were already being touted as one of the better units in the entire league. How they were able to dominate the New York Giants, a playoff team last season, was almost unreal. It's doubtful they can continue to put up the kind of numbers they did in Week 1, however, this is a defense that will only continue to get better from here on out. The sky is the limit as to just how good they can actually be.

THE UGLY - Dak Prescott and the passing game

We're getting nitpicky here, but we were all probably hoping to see more from Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys new look offense, especially in the passing game. Unfortunately, things never really clicked for them through the air Sunday night. There were too many dropped passes and a few poorly thrown balls, but thankfully it didn't matter. The rainy weather conditions and jumping out to an early lead of course made the aerial attack less important, however, it is the one area of the game were Dallas didn't really dominate the Giants young inexperienced cornerbacks as predicted.