I needed a few hours to write this so I could try and put the pieces of my heart back together. First and foremost last night was as good of a game as I could have hoped for. A Dallas win would have been SO good but honestly it wasn't expected. I have been through a lot of Dallas games where we lost and looked way worse than we did last night. I was pleasantly surprised in almost every facet of our game.
Dak looked like Dak. His surgically repaired ankle and strained arm looked like a distant memory. He was mobile and unafraid to run. He was as good as new and in some ways he was the better quarterback in that game. Amari Cooper began his effort to prove that he is the best in the league. He caught two touchdown passes and had 139 yards total from 13 catches (did I mention I have him in fantasy). CeeDee Lamb also had a touchdown although he had a few big drops early on in the game that will be addressed in practice I am sure. As unsurprised as I was by our talented receiving core, I was surprised by Zeke. Instead of attempting to run him through one of the leagues best run defenses, they used him to block and pass as often as possible. He was still just as vital as always in terms of picking up Tampa Bay's blitz and protecting Dak so he could throw for 403 yards and three touchdowns in the loss.
Another surprise of the night came on the other side of the ball. The Dallas defense was the biggest question going into camp and I think a lot of those questions got answered last night. We may not be a top 10 defense (yet) but four turnovers is no easy feat against anyone, much less Tom Brady's team. Our secondary is still weak but Diggs was a bright spot. Diggs was across from Mike Evans on 39 of his 47 routes and kept him to only 1 reception for 10 yards. The defense showed a lot of improvement over last year (Not that it would be difficult to improve upon a horrific defensive showing last season). If the refs had called offensive pass interference on the final drive (which it was), our defense may just have been able to stop Tom Brady from his final heroics. I am very optimistic that if we can solidify our secondary a little bit and maybe try and teach Anthony Brown how to cover somebody we can win a lot of games this year.
One of the biggest and worst surprises of the game was our kicker forgetting how to kick. Greg Zuerlein who missed 7 field goals all of last year missed two yesterday plus missing an extra point. And he wasn't even close on most of them. The only kick that was straight down the middle was the 46 yard go-ahead field goal with a minute and half left in the game. As we know, one and a half minutes is way too long for Tom Brady and he proved it once again last night. Zuerlein made the field goal that he had to, but the points he left on the field (7) from his 31 yard, 60 yard, and extra point miss were detrimental to the Cowboys. In a battle against one of the best teams in the NFL, every single point counts and we needed all of them we could get last night. It was a very disappointing surprise but at least now we know that games that come down to a field goal, I should be very worried.
I told myself that as long as the Cowboys played a good game I would be happy. I mean last night, I was not happy. I was cursing the day Tom Brady was born and asking the football gods why I can't ever have one good win. But today, I am happy. I am excited to watch this Cowboy team. I think that we will win a lot of games this year and as Dak said to Tom Brady, we will see them again.
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