Cowboys news: The Dallas defense should be a ‘big deal’

NFL Week 1’s biggest deals - Adam Schein, NFL.com

The Dallas Cowboys defense made waves in the media to start the week.

2) Cowboys blow Giants off their own field

In the aforementioned preseason predictions, I had Dallas winning the NFC East and New York missing the playoffs. But, man ... 40-0?!! I didn’t think the gap between these two divisional foes was that wide.

In the first Sunday night game of the season, the Cowboys stormed MetLife Stadium and posted the biggest shutout in franchise history. That was a nationally televised beatdown. And while the final score certainly took me by surprise, the well-rounded effort from Dallas didn’t. This roster is stacked, and Mike McCarthy had his team ready to rock. Big shoutout to defensive coordinator Dan Quinn and special teams coordinator John Fassel, too, as their respective units provided the Cowboys’ first two touchdowns.

With the total team effort, Dak Prescott and the offense weren’t asked to do too much. Still, I was impressed by Tony Pollard’s ability to run with authority. The 26-year-old running back’s 2022 campaign ended with a broken leg in Dallas’ Divisional Round loss to San Francisco. Eight months later, he carried the ball 14 times for 70 yards and two touchdowns. Defensively, the Cowboys absolutely wrecked shop, racking up seven sacks and three takeaways while allowing just 63 net passing yards. Micah Parsons is a force of nature, and Stephon Gilmore made an immediate impact for his new team.

The Dallas Cowboys displayed the makings of a Super Bowl contender in Week 1 - Sam Monson, PFF

A dominant defense and a potentially lethal offense have the Dallas Cowboys firmly in Super Bowl contention, Monson explains.

Week 1 of an NFL season throws up crazy results and strange games all the time, but the reason this one is so compelling is because there was a growing feeling all offseason that the Cowboys might be for real this time.

The defense put on full display how much destruction it can wreak on an offense once it gets going. Micah Parsons led the charge — and was virtually unblockable for long stretches of time — but several other Cowboys defenders chipped in with impressive games.

How much of that dominance is a result of the problems the Giants' offense still has is up for debate, but this was a championship-level performance from a defense that was already good a year ago and is now upgraded with significant reinforcements from the offseason.

Dallas has failed to perform in the playoffs for so many years now that it has become taboo to tip them for that success, but their Super Bowl odds were slashed in several places after that performance against the Giants.

We could be witnessing the first Super Bowl team from the Cowboys since the 1990s.

One thing we learned about each NFL team in Week 1: Cowboys have top 'D' - Jeff Kerr, CBSSports.com

More praise for the Cowboys defense.

Micah Parsons proclaimed as such, and the All-Pro pass rusher is probably right. Dallas forced 22 pressures against New York, finishing with six sacks and 12 quarterback hits in a dominant effort. The Cowboys allowed just 171 yards and 2.6 yards per play, with the exclamation point being the interception return for touchdown in the first quarter. Dallas led the league in takeaways last year while having a dominant pass rush. The unit may be even better in 2023.

Nick at Nite: It doesn’t matter how you get here - Nick Harris, Dallascowboys.com

Some thoughts on the Cowboys' Week 1 win.

It started hours before the team even left the hotel on Sunday morning when C.J. Goodwin – who was acquired from Cincinnati’s practice squad in 2018 and has been the Cowboys’ invaluable special teams ace in the five seasons since – took over a special teams meeting in a ballroom of the Envue Hotel in Weehawken, N.J. as they walked through their first field goal block call of the season.

“C.J. just kind of took it over,” special teams coordinator John Fassel said. “He knew the potential of the rush and who could get through, and we witnessed that conversation where he talked to Juanyeh about what’s gonna happen. ‘This is how many steps you gotta take. This is how fast you gotta get there.’ That was the last thing we talked about and sure enough it happened in the first five minutes of the game.”

The next play came from 2022 undrafted free agent Juanyeh Thomas, who followed each order from Goodwin to step in front of what would end up being New York’s best scoring opportunity all night to block a Graham Gano field goal. Waiting on the backside was the team’s newest face, Noah Igbinoghene – who was acquired in a trade with Miami on cut day just 13 days ago – as he scooped up the loose ball and ran it down the sideline for the team’s first touchdown of the season.

“It’s something that I’ve been praying about, and maybe I was praying for this,” Ibinoghene said when he arrived in Dallas. “God really blessed me and sent me over here. I feel like my past is done away with. I get to start a new future and a new present, and just be in the present.”

Bengals release La’El Collins off PUP list - Myles Simmons, NBC Sports

The former Cowboys right tackle is now a free agent.

The Bengals have made a surprising move with one of their injured offensive linemen.

Cincinnati released La’El Collins off of the reserve/physically unable to perform list, according to the transaction wire.

Collins, 30, is recovering from a torn ACL suffered in December. He started 15 games for the Bengals last year after signing a three-year deal with the club in free agency.

With Collins unavailable, the Bengals signed left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. in March and moved former left tackle Jonah Williams to right tackle for the start of the 2023 season.

Collins has appeared in 89 games with 86 starts since 2015, playing his first six seasons with Dallas.

We need to talk about the double standard in the media coverage for Dak Prescott - Mac Engel, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Bills quarterback Josh Allen is certainly turning the ball over more than Dak Prescott.

There is a double standard for Dak Prescott; just as there has been for those who came before him he will have to endure, while benefiting from, that double standard. The quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys is the most scrutinized player in the NFL, and as such he enjoys a life that few others do.

Mostly in terms of potential endorsements, and an array of future opportunities that come with being The Man for the NFL’s most visible franchise.

You will notice that Don Meredith, Roger, Troy and Romo all went to the broadcast booth; hard to say if they would have made that jump had they not been the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.

Don’t see a lot of former Jaguars, Lions and Texans QB’s in the booth calling the NFL’s biggest games. Current NBC NFL analyst Cris Collinsworth put it best when before the start of the season he said, “If NBC had their choice, we would do 17 Dallas Cowboys games.”

There is just nothing quite like being the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. And there is just nothing quite like being the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.

Dallas Cowboys’ line vs. Jets on move after dominant Week 1 showing - Patrick Everson, FOX Sports

Everson explains how the line versus the Jets began moving , starting on Sunday.

Prior to the Cowboys-Giants game, Caesars had an NFL Week 2 look-ahead line of Dallas -3 vs. the Jets. By Monday afternoon (before Monday night’s Bills-Jets game), Caesars moved off the key number of 3 to Dallas -3.5.

“The Sunday night game definitely had a lot to do with it. [But] it’s not like the Cowboys will be 6-point favorites just because they looked infallible,” Adam Pullen, assistant director of trading for Caesars Sports, said.

Caesars took the Jets-Cowboys game off the board during Monday Night Football. On Tuesday morning, when the matchup was reposted, Caesars went straight to Cowboys -7.5. And bettors still thought that wasn’t enough for a Cowboys team facing the now Zach Wilson-led Jets.

Dallas quickly moved to -8.5, then -9.5 at Caesars before finally meeting some betting resistance. Early Tuesday afternoon, the line returned to -8.5.

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