It has been somewhat of a roller coaster start to the season for the 2019 Dallas Cowboys. They started off by winning their first three games then followed that up with three straight losses, including a loss to the 1-6 New York Jets. They snapped their losing streak with a 37-10 win over the Philadelphia Eagles. They will play the New York Giants on Monday Night Football but after that the schedule gets tough. They have the Detroit Lions, New England Patriots, Los Angeles Rams and Eagles again in their final 8 games.

On this report card, we will take a look at what contributed to this roller coaster start.

Coaching

From an offensive standpoint, we saw an offense we haven’t seen in Dallas for years in the first three games of the season. The Cowboys were throwing more on first downs, throwing the ball down the field, using play-action and showing actual creativity from a play-calling standpoint under first-year offensive coordinator Kellen Moore.

Then, starting with the New Orleans game, we saw hardly any play-action, a ton of runs on first down and the explosive plays went away and that led, along with injuries to Tyron Smith, La’el Collins and Amari Cooper to three straight losses.

From a defensive standpoint, there is no doubt there has been some regression. One quote stood out to me from Sam Darnold after the Jets game. Darnold, when asked about the Cowboys defense said that they “did what they do every week,” which screams predictability to me and puts you behind the eight ball if you are making things so easy that a second-year quarterback knows what you are in.

Overall, the Cowboys are still at a huge disadvantage when they take the field from a coaching perspective most weeks.

Grade: B-

Offense

When you look inside the numbers for the Cowboys offense, you will see they lead the league in total yards per game (437.9) and are top 10 in points per game (27.1), passing yards per game (291.9) and rushing yards per game (146). To this point in the season it doesn’t feel like the Cowboys have been stopped very often by opposing defenses but crucial penalties missed field goals, turnovers and taking a sack at the wrong time has contributed to drives stalling out.

Grade: B+

Defense

Coming into the season, I had high hopes for what this defense could be. They are coming off their best performance of the season against the Eagles, where they forced 4 turnovers and had three sacks. The talent is there to have those type of performances more often when you look at names like Robert Quinn, Demarcus Lawrence, Leighton Vander Esch, Jaylon Smith, Xavier Woods, Byron Jones but I think you could make a case that all of those guys have underperformed through seven games outside of Quinn. I also expected Chidobe Awuzie to have a big year and that hasn’t materialized yet, either.

Overall, I believe the Cowboys can be so much better on defense than they have shown so far despite being ranked in the Top 10 in most defensive categories. 

Grade: C+