Perfectly Flawed – Cowboys continue dominance heading into the playoffs

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Indianapolis Colts tried to file assault charges against the Dallas Cowboys after the 54-19 beatdown on Sunday night. After a somewhat sloppy, and weird first half, the Cowboys managed to put up a whopping 33 points in the fourth quarter alone to improve to 9-3 on the season.

What we learned

The Dallas Cowboys do not seem to play that well coming off of rest, and still have the tendency to play down to the level of their opponent. I alluded to this over the weekend about how the Cowboys could not allow this to become a trap game for them, and throughout the first half of the game, it sure seemed like the Cowboys were falling victim to their own mistakes.

QB Dak Prescott and the Cowboys’ offense (outside of CeeDee Lamb) did not look sharp in the first half, sputtering their way through with self-inflicted wounds, inaccurate throws, and an unfortunate interception in the second quarter. Think back to the game against the Green Bay Packers – the Cowboys were coming off a bye, they were healthy, and fell short to a depleted team that had been playing bad football. The Cowboys had ten days of rest for this game against the Colts and still came out flat. This leads me to believe this team struggles with extra rest. The Cowboys had plenty of opportunities to extend their lead against the Colts earlier in the game, but kept tripping over their own feet.

The Cowboys quickly regained their balance though. Because if you found yourself praying during halftime that things would improve – then it worked. Things escalated rather quickly for OC Kellen Moore’s group, as the Cowboys’ offense ended up scoring seven offensive touchdowns.

It remains true that when the Cowboys’ offense has questions, the defense comes through with the answers. The Cowboys’ defense is truly a terrifying unit, and they have consistently wreaked havoc on opposing quarterbacks all year long. Former Indianapolis Colt, Malik Hooker kicked off the takeaway party for the Dallas defense with a fumble recovery (and an interception later on) that catapulted this team to the 33 unanswered points they put up in the fourth quarter.