Troubles mount as tougher test lie ahead
Key injuries, defensive deficiencies causes for concern with schedule set to strengthen.
— Reinforcements can’t get here fast enough.
The Dallas Cowboys are losing players faster than they are losing games. And with Sunday night’s 26-20 loss to the New Orleans Saints on an electrifying 80-yard touchdown pass to C.J. Spiller in overtime, the 2-2 Cowboys have given away their early cushion in the NFC East. They now fifind themselves in a tie for fifirst place with the New York Giants and Washington Redskins.
And the meat of the schedule will arrive next Sunday in the form of the defending NFL champion New England Patriots. A trip to the Meadowlands follows for a rematch with the suddenly surging Giants, and then the defending NFC champion Seattle Seahawks will pay a visit. The Cowboys will be the underdog in all three games
and could slide into a huge hole in the division by the time Tony Romo and Dez Bryant return around Thanksgiving.
The good news is that an embattled defense will get its best run defender and pass rusher back next week against the Patriots when middle linebacker Rolando McClain and defensive end Greg Hardy return from their NFL suspensions. Dallas will need both against Tom Brady, who has carved out a Hall of Fame-caliber career shredding the NFL’s best defenses — much less struggling units such as the Cowboys’.
But the bad news is that the best Dallas defender might not be ready for the Patriots. Weakside linebacker Sean Lee left the New Orleans game in the second quarter with a head injury and will now be subject to the NFL’s concussion protocol. He entered Sunday night as the leading tackler (34), leading sacker (one) and leading interceptor (one) on a unit otherwise devoid of playmakers. Cowboys Vice President Stephen Jones was optimistic Monday about Lee’s chances of playing against the Patriots, but there are still hurdles to clear.
Without him against the Saints, the Dallas defense couldn’t get off the fifield. Drew Brees was still favoring his tender right shoulder, which sidelined him last week in a loss to Carolina, and spent the night throwing short passes. At one point, he completed 15 consecutive passes and 23 of 24.
But when Brees needed his arm in overtime, he found the speedy Spiller isolated on linebacker Damien Wilson and lofted a pass down the right sideline for the winning touchdown.
On the other side of the ball, the Cowboys once again tried to survive with a small-play offense. It failed against the Falcons last week and failed again vs. the Saints.
Only two Cowboys made explosive plays: backup running back Lance Dunbar, who bolted 45 yards around right end on his fifirst carry in the fifirst quarter to provide the only spark for a sputtering run offense, and backup wideout Brice Butler, who caught a 67-yard pass from Brandon Weeden in the third quarter.
But Dunbar injured his left knee on the second-half kickoff and might be out for quite a while. Butler pulled his hamstring on his one catch, and his night was over as well.
Weeden did engineer a Romo-like touchdown drive in the closing minutes of regulation to send the game into overtime.
But those drives were too few and too far between, forcing an overmatched Dallas defense to again spend too much time on the fifield. New Orleans held onto the ball for almost 31 minutes and put together drives of 72, 37 and 68 yards in the fourth quarter alone.
When Romo and Bryant went down in September, the winnable games on the schedule appeared to be Atlanta and New Orleans. The Cowboys lost both. Now the road gets longer and tougher. Right now, this is a team with no answers, just questions.