Cowboys: Mike McCarthy offers painfully honest assessment of Week 16
Following the Dallas Cowboys' loss to the Miami Dolphins in Week 16, head coach Mike McCarthy found a solid way to describe the struggles seen in the matchup. "It's a challenge in these games because you know it's going to come down to one play," McCarthy told reporters postgame. "And they probably made a play […]
Following the Dallas Cowboys' loss to the Miami Dolphins in Week 16, head coach Mike McCarthy found a solid way to describe the struggles seen in the matchup.
"It's a challenge in these games because you know it's going to come down to one play," McCarthy told reporters postgame. "And they probably made a play or two more than we did."
But the Cowboys head coach also offered a painfully honest assessment of his own performance, pointing out one of the big reasons why the offense went to sleep after the first couple of drives, which were extremely efficient albeit a costly fumble in the opening series.
"We're disappointed because we had plays that were there," said McCarthy. "We made some miscues. I had a horseshit backed-up plan. We were backed up twice, and we didn't move the field position, so, you know, we didn't help our defense there."
Those two drives were specially frustrating as nothing seemed to go right for Dallas in them. One happened in the second quarter after a huge defensive stop which put the offense at the six-yard line. The Cowboys were unable to make it count as five plays later, Bryan Anger punted it back to the Dolphins. The second one came early in the third quarter, a three-and-out after the defense had gotten off the field quickly to start the second half.
Those two drives were also a part of a frustrating span of the game where the Cowboys surprisingly turned away from CeeDee Lamb despite his jaw-dropping 102-yard first quarter.
"The two backed-up series, as I've already stated, were poor," McCarthy further explained. "We had some protection issues. They had linebackers run through too many times. It's part of playing and we had some change ups in the line and in the hot (routes) and so forth, we've got to make those plays. The protection part, particularly in those pressures that we saw, we had a couple that we weren't where we needed to be."
As a team, the Cowboys allowed 17 pressures against the Dolphins, per PFF, most of which came from the outside as Chuma Edoga and Terence Steele both struggled against one of the top edge rusher duos in the NFL in Bradley Chubb and Andrew Van Ginkel.
Moving forward, as the Cowboys understand Tyron Smith's availability will remain as spotty as ever, McCarthy's staff will have to leave as little room for error in its pass protection schemes as possible. While their recent road woes are tough to fully decipher, their last three losses have all featured significant struggles in the trenches.
Against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 14, when the Cowboys beat their rival by 20 points, they showed significant improvement in helping out Steele with many schemed protections. But when the Dallas has to worry about the two tackle spots, trouble arises, as we learned in Miami.
If they are to overcome their on-tour struggles in January when they're playing do-or-die football, Prescott playing with a cleaner pocket is going to be a difference maker.
