Cowboys identity needs to align with Mike McCarthy for team to progress from 2-2 start

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The Cowboys have a lot of work to do on both sides of the ball.

The NFL calendar will turn over to October at the conclusion of week four on Monday night, but the Dallas Cowboys already know they’ll get there with a .500 record of 2-2 following Thursday night’s 20-15 win at the New York Giants. The Cowboys found a way to avoid a third straight loss early in the season, but the one-score win against a division rival they’ve dominated in recent history came at a tremendous cost. A Mike Zimmer led defense that held the Giants out of the end zone for four quarters, and ended the game with an interception, lost top pass rushers Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence to injury. Both key players could miss multiple weeks, with the Cowboys bye coming in week seven after a road game at the Steelers and home date with the Lions.

Not only were the Cowboys already thin along a defensive line that did not have their way with the Giants’ offensive line like they’re used to, but Parsons and Lawrence are both leaders for a defense breaking in so many inexperienced players at all three levels right now. It should go without saying that their absence will be greatly felt, as the Cowboys defense has had to scrap and fight against Cleveland and New York to help carry the team to victory in those games while the offense has mostly struggled.

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Early season football can be more about establishing an identity as a team than it is firing out of the gates with wins right away, although doing both in some capacity is obviously the best case scenario. If the Cowboys identity is to be a more hard-nosed, lean-on-the-defense type of team, they are going to face problems in the coming weeks. Even when Dan Quinn’s defenses were playing at their best, they did so in harmony with a Cowboys offense that piled up points to allow the defense to hunt for turnovers against teams forced to throw the football for chunk plays.

Last year, they did so with head coach Mike McCarthy calling the plays for the first time. This season was supposed to be an evolution of McCarthy’s offense showing that Dallas could unlock even more from core players like Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb, both signed to extensions prior to the start of the regular season. Instead, the offense has looked unimaginative and laborious. There isn’t much that comes easy for McCarthy’s offense at all right now, with the rushing attack lacking a real threat out of the backfield and options outside of Lamb and TE Jake Ferguson to soften defenses in the pass game being unproven.

The #Cowboys rank 24th in shift/motion rate, 21st in RPOs, 27th in play-action rate and 23rd in bunch formation rate.

Don't need to rank highly in all of these but ranking so low in each one illustrates how static and unimaginative DAL's offense has been thus far. No effort to…

— John Owning (@JohnOwning) September 28, 2024

Both Lamb and starting receiver Brandin Cooks rank in the bottom five of the entire league in average yards of separation through four weeks. The Cowboys lead the league in third-down conversions, which isn’t exactly an area they want to be near the top in, as the offense has looked like it’s their goal to take at least three plays to get ten yards for much of the season.

The Cowboys asking Prescott to play hero ball immediately after making him the highest paid player in NFL history was hopelessly predictable from a personnel standpoint, as a big part of Dallas’ struggles has also been rookie starter Tyler Guyton struggling at left tackle. What should come as more of a surprise, and potentially lead to changes if this team wants to remain competitive this season, is the way their play-caller is handcuffing the offense at the moment. The Cowboys have praised the culture that McCarthy has put in place, and now more than ever should be looking for it to manifest on the field with McCarthy coaching for his job here in 2024. But instead what we are seeing is a team that looks nothing like one built in their HC’s image and able to respond to what McCarthy will need to get out of an undermanned team in the coming weeks.

Zimmer’s defense got to work fixing their glaring issues faced against the Saints and Ravens to put a much better effort forward against the Giants. McCarthy’s offense failed to put the game away on their own terms multiple times with two second half run plays on second and 10+ yards that led to failed third and long attempts followed by a punt and missed field goal.

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Sunday’s action around the league saw two undefeated teams reach the 4-0 mark with the Chiefs and Vikings winning divisional games on the road. The Bills fell from the undefeated ranks against the Ravens on Sunday night while the 3-0 Seahawks play at the Lions on Monday night. While all of these teams have differences in how they’ve reached this point, a common thread is a strong identity reflected by their head coach. Andy Reid, Mike Tomlin, Kevin O’Connell, and even first year head coach Mike Macdonald with the Seahawks have all set a standard that their teams consistently play to and make it difficult for opposing teams to stop what they do best. These are teams that know what they can fall back on when faced with adversity, which isn’t something that can be said about the Cowboys at the moment. Dallas does not have this advantage with McCarthy at the moment, and are not suited to quickly flip their identity to the defensive side of the ball while faced with such a lack of depth right now.

The team has seen this story before on offense leading to wasted years of Prescott’s career with past coordinators Scott Linehan or Kellen Moore. Realizing these same mistakes again while trying to sell the fanbase that this year’s team is still looking to be competitive has been difficult for the Cowboys front office. It feels like major changes won’t be made before so many coach’s contracts expire in the offseason, and it becomes much more convenient to reshape the culture, only further making McCarthy a “lame duck” coach and not one in place looking to win at least 12 regular season games again and contend for more than just the NFC East.

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The Cowboys may have thought the roster had just enough talent to not make this 2024 season an obvious punt down the road, but that was with the expectation that Lawrence and Parsons would remain in the lineup for as close to every game as possible.

Offense as a whole, and scoring numbers being down around the league, will likely not last all season as top quarterbacks and receivers are going to find a way to have their say in key wins and losses at some point. The Cowboys have already made their commitments to Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb to be their most important players at these positions, but in the immediate aftermath of doing so are not setting their highest paid players up for success often enough. Lack of motion in the offense and trust in pass protection to develop routes downfield has made McCarthy’s offense much too easy to scout against, and the cascading effect of not being able to win games on this side of the ball while this young defense faces too much pressure could be disastrous given the Cowboys’ upcoming schedule.

To say any team around the league right now looks ready for high-leverage December and January football would be foolish, but the Cowboys have done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt that they’ll be one such team under McCarthy coming into this season. Their play throughout the year must develop and improve in a way it hasn’t for years to earn this, and right now it’s early enough to start with getting back to their identity and having everyone’s role fall into place based off trust in the offense to make big plays. The offense must use the mini bye week ahead of them before a matchup with a ferocious Steelers defense to find the adjustments that are going to make the Cowboys more of a threat in October than they were at the start of this season.

If the aftermath of non-competitive losses to the Saints and Ravens at home was any taste of the consistent criticism the Cowboys will face after every loss this season, an immediate emphasis needs to be put on winning and losing games with your most important and best players and coaches having the biggest say. With players like DeMarvion Overshown and Amani Oruwariye shining more than Brandin Cooks in week four’s win, the Cowboys have a long way to go in this area. Seeing how they respond after having the benefit of extra time to prepare for the Steelers, a team that can be beaten if the offense gets it together and forces Justin Fields on the other side to keep up, will be very telling at the start of a new month and hopeful new chapter on this 2-2 Cowboys season thus far.