Colts shockingly dominate, blank visiting Cowboys
INDIANAPOLIS – Facing a red-hot Cowboys team in a game with massive playoff implications, the Colts beat Dallas at its own game.
Indianapolis crushed Dallas 23-0 behind a dominant running game and a suffocating defense, handing the Cowboys their first shutout since 2003, when Dallas failed to score in a game against the Patriots.
Red-zone struggles haunted Dallas
(8-6) again. With Washington beating Jacksonville 16-13, the Cowboys’ hunt for an NFC East title heads to next week.
The Colts (8-6) are now built to win in multiple ways — this is the first time they won a game in which Andrew Luck did not throw a touchdown pass since
2013 — and kept themselves in prime position to fight for the final spot in the AFC playoff picture.
Things we learned from the game:
Ryan Kelly and Mo Alie-Cox were exactly what was missing from the Colts’ running game. For the better part of the past two weeks, the Indianapolis ground game that looked so good in late October and early November seemed like it had hit a wall. Facing two good defensive fronts, the Colts combined for 91 yards rushing in back-to-back games against the Jaguars and Texans.
After those two performances, the Indianapolis running game looked like a bad matchup against a Cowboys defense that entered Sunday’s game ranked third in the NFL against the run. Except that the Colts got two key pieces back to full strength this week. Center Ryan Kelly and massive tight end Mo Alie-Cox returned to the offense after missing three weeks apiece because of injury, and the pair of key blockers gave Marlon Mack the kind of room to run that he simply hadn’t enjoyed in Jacksonville and Houston.
Mack dominated the Cowboys from the start, racking up 139 yards on 27 carries and leading the Colts to 178 yards on the ground, ending Dallas’ five-game streak of holding teams to fewer than 100 rushing yards and picking up more yards than the Cowboys have allowed all season. Before Sunday’s performance, the most Dallas had given up in a game was 147 yards to the Panthers in the season opener. Where was Amari Cooper? The Cowboys’ stout defense has outperformed its offense this season. The acquisition and integration of wide receiver Amari Cooper was the turning point for a unit that began producing enough to climb atop the NFC East.
At Indianapolis, Cooper touched the ball four times in 38 first-half plays, with quarterback Dak Prescott targeting him on just four of 19 passes before the half. Cooper had 32 receiving yards all day, a far cry from his 217-yard performance last week against the Eagles.
Prescott entered the day with zero touchdowns and two interceptions in 91 attempts against zone coverages since the trade for Cooper, according to Sports Info Solutions. Against the Colts’ zone-
heavy defense, Prescott had zero scores and an interception. Hurting themselves: The Cowboys drew nine penalties for 74 yards, missed on both red-zone opportunities and converted just four of 12 times on third down. A 4th-and-2 completion to Cole Beasley negated by holding illustrated Dallas’ day well. So did a blocked field goal attempt by kicker Brett Maher, who last week set a franchise record by connecting on a 62-yarder. This Colts defense is good enough
to win games on its own. Defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus and his troops put on a clinic, repeatedly coming up with big plays in key moments against an Ezekiel Elliott-led Dallas offense.
Using Elliott as its engine, the Cowboys put together three promising drives in the first half and did what they like to do, largely keeping the ball away from Luck and the Colts’ offense, which had the ball just three times in the first two quarters.
Every time the Cowboys got close, the Colts’ defense came up with a big play. First it was a Denico Autry blocked kick, then a fourth-down stop of Elliott by Margus Hunt and Matthew Adams, then a Tyquan Lewis sack to knock Dallas out of field goal range.
The defense pitched the first shutout Indianapolis has tossed since a 2014 whitewash of the Bengals.
Contributing: Jori Epstein of USA TODAY