{"id":448356,"date":"2025-12-15T09:39:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T09:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/448356\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T09:39:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T09:39:20","slug":"its-back-to-the-old-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/448356\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s back to the old reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those home victories over the Eagles <\/a>and Chiefs<\/a> made that Arizona<\/a> loss here feel like something from a different season. Well, it was back to the old reality Sunday night when a last-place Vikings team got the best of Dallas, 34-26<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Offense <\/p>\n

The point total wasn\u2019t terrible against a veteran defense, but Dallas had one touchdown drive that was longer than 35 yards. Going end to end \u2014 or even from their own side of the 50 to the end zone \u2014 was mostly not an option for an offense that could not stop being confounded by the Vikings\u2019 pressure<\/a> on third downs. Just an overmatched look the Cowboys could not shake.<\/p>\n

Grade: <\/b>C <\/p>\n

Defense<\/p>\n

Cowboys<\/p>\n

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Only the Bengals have given up more points to the Vikings this season, and it seemed like we said \u201donly the Bengals\u201d a lot back in September and October when talking about the Dallas defense. The Cowboys intercepted a pass in the first minute, then never made another big play (turnover or sack) in the final 59. If J.J. McCarthy had developed any chemistry at all with his best weapon, Justin Jefferson, this would have really gotten ugly.<\/p>\n

Grade: <\/b>D <\/p>\n

Special teams <\/p>\n

What else can the grade be when Brandon Aubrey, Mr. Automatic for Dallas the last two years, misses a pair of field goals? Cowboys were much better on kick coverage but that was never really an issue in this one.<\/p>\n

Grade: <\/b>D <\/p>\n

Coaching<\/p>\n

Brian Schottenheimer said he was outcoached by Brian Flores, the Vikings\u2019 DC, and we won\u2019t argue with him. No question the Cowboys were ready to play, even succeeding on a fake field goal in the first three minutes to set up a touchdown. But Minnesota\u2019s disguised fronts fooled Dak and Co. all night long and the Cowboys didn\u2019t blitz enough to cause McCarthy\u2018s inexperience to show.<\/p>\n

Grade: D <\/p>\n

Overall<\/p>\n

This was a costly loss, a season-ender in all practical term<\/a>s as only a fool thinks the Eagles are going 0-3 while Dallas finishes 3-0. Failure to score touchdowns on second and third quarter opportunities kept the Cowboys from gaining necessary control against a team that went 1-6 before last Sunday\u2019s win against Washington. <\/p>\n

Grade: <\/b>D <\/p>\n

ind more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Those home victories over the Eagles and Chiefs made that Arizona loss here feel like something from a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":448357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,11890,7311,1596,8998,1232,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-448356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-commentary","10":"tag-cowboys","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-dallas-cowboys","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115722922604288213","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}