Cowboys Offense Just Good Enough

Prescott, Lamb see historic runs halted in Carolina

The Cowboys continue to roll against bad teams.

After smacking around the Panthers (1-9) at Bank of America Stadium yesterday afternoon, the Cowboys (7-3) enter Thanksgiving Week at 7-3, behind only Philadelphia, Detroit and San Francisco in the NFC, and two of those three still left on the schedule over these final seven games.

And while yesterday in Carolina was yet another win over a team below .500, the Cowboys did it in a way nobody expected.

After weeks of wide receiver CeeDee Lamb on a historic NFL run and quarterback Dak Prescott on a historic franchise run, the offense has been smashing their opponents – at least the ones not nicknamed 49ers, averaging 32.4 points a game in those other nine contests.

But on Sunday, those amazing runs came to a screeching halt, and yet they still hit their average in points over this stretch.

Lamb found it hard to get open, not making his first catch of the game until 1:10 left in the first quarter, when Prescott found him on first and 10 at the Dallas 20 for a quick five yards.

Prescott wouldn’t hit Lamb again until the final drive of the half, a 10-yard catch and run on third and 16 at the Carolina 29. A stupid unnecessary roughness call after the play on Carolina kept the drive going for Dallas. Lamb’s final catch of the half came just a couple plays later on third and five from the Panthers five and gave the Cowboys a 17-3 halftime lead.

It was a lot like the production we saw from him in games the Cowboys were beaten in this season. Lamb had one catch for seven yards in the first half against Arizona and two catches for 14 yards in the opening 30 minutes in San Francisco.

Lamb would finish with six catches for just 38 yards in the win over Carolina.

As for Prescott, he had a hard time getting it going, as the Cowboys went 3-and-out on the first series of the game.

While he wasn’t sacked, Prescott was hit four times and hurried on several other plays. He even used his legs twice for six yards.

He didn’t play bad. In fact, he looked pretty good, completing over 65-percent of his passes.

But his receivers weren’t getting good separation, and the Panthers were able to knock down eight of Dak’s 13 incompletions – including three from Troy Hill, who played like an All-Pro for a series or two in the second half.

The Cowboys lacked the run-after-catch quotient that turned good plays into big ones and big ones in explosive ones. The offense had just four plays over 20 yards, two of those were runs by Tony Pollard, while the others were a 24-yard pass to Jake Ferguson and a 22-yard pass to Brandin Cooks.

That’s it. The other two plays that resulted in more than a 20-yard gain were both influenced by a penalty on the Panthers.

So, that’s it – four real plays over 20 yards in 68 offensive snaps.

But in the end, they didn’t need Lamb or Prescott to have a superhero effort. They got their heroic performances from Micah Parsons, who finished with six tackles and 2.5 sacks (they took .5 sack away from him overnight, so he lost his team record for sacks in a game), DaRon Bland, who had an NFL record tying fourth pick-six of the season and a defense that produced seven total sacks and held the Panthers to just 187 yards in total offense and 10 points.

Not something they can rely on every week, but on Sunday, they got the two monster performances they needed to put away the toothless Panthers.

Now, it’s on to Washington and the annual Thanksgiving Day game.