Mike McCarthy had an interesting performance in Pittsburgh to say the least.
This was a homecoming game of sorts for the Cowboys. Obviously, they didn’t play at home, but head coach Mike McCarthy – who, by the way, did you know is from Pittsburgh? – was set to coach just his third game ever in his home town. McCarthy had never won in Pittsburgh, going 0-2 on the road against the Steelers as the head coach for the Packers.
That all changed Sunday night, even with the weather delay. And it happened in a way that the head coach likely relished.
The Steelers have a reputation as a football team, one that’s been around for years but has become more drawn out in recent years. Pittsburgh hasn’t been viewed as a legitimate Super Bowl contender in quite a while, and their offense usually makes things very hard on themselves, but like the Iowa Hawkeyes of college football they just keep winning.
Head coach Mike Tomlin has never had a losing season, and it’s not like he’s just been posting 9-8 season after 9-8 season. The Steelers won 12 games back in 2020, starting out 11-0 and being the last undefeated team on the season. Just last year they won 10 games despite having three different starting quarterbacks. So far this year, they’ve only played Justin Fields under center, even though he was supposed to backup Russell Wilson; they started out 3-0 and have lost their last two games by a combined six points. Tomlin’s Steelers have become the kings of the ugly win.
It’s the kind of football McCarthy aspires for his team to be capable of. Obviously he would prefer to win every game 45-3, and he’s had more than his fair share of those types of wins since coming to Dallas. But having a team that can hunker down and persevere through injuries, mistakes, penalties, and more to pull out a gutsy win is the type of edge McCarthy has sought to instill in this team. His players certainly knew it this week, and they did just that against the Steelers, beating the ugly win kings at their own game.
That isn’t to say this was a perfect win for the Cowboys, because it wasn’t. The team was penalized 11 times, the third time this season they’ve drawn that many flags. All of them have come on the road, and the Cowboys have won all three of those games.
Beyond the penalties, though, Dak Prescott had three awful turnovers that marred what was an otherwise great performance for the quarterback. Prescott’s first turnover was a sack-fumble that was completely caused by Prescott holding the ball too long. Then he threw an interception on what looked to be a miscommunication with CeeDee Lamb. Both came in the red zone, and both killed promising drives that could have blown things wide open. His third turnover was a deep shot that just poorly placed, not giving Jalen Tolbert a chance at making the play.
Still, Prescott stepped up when it mattered most, and McCarthy empowered his quarterback to save the day. He called the screen to Hunter Luepke knowing the Steelers would sell out to rush Prescott, and trusting that his quarterback wouldn’t repeat his earlier mistake of holding the ball too long in the red zone. He called the option play after that, trusting Prescott to make the right read and set the team up for the go-ahead score. And he did all of this while keeping an eye on the clock, and the Cowboys took the lead with just seconds left in the game.
Pre-MNF, the #Cowboys rank 10th in shift/motion rate for Week 5 (64.5%, includes plays nullified by penalty) per PFF.
— John Owning (@JohnOwning) October 7, 2024
The Cowboys exorcised a few demons in this game too. For the second straight week, the offense saw a significant uptick in pre-snap motion. Of course, it helped that the Cowboys were able to run their normal offense and not be in hurry-up mode all game, as they were against the Saints and Ravens.
The run game also got going, another byproduct of running their normal offense. Last week saw the Cowboys do the same thing, and Rico Dowdle had a solid night with a wildly efficient 63.6% success rate on his carries. It wasn’t as high in this game, but Dowdle broke six tackles and had three runs of 10+ yards, both of which are season high’s for him. As a team, the Cowboys had a rushing success rate of 38.7%, their second-best on the year after last week’s performance.
Defensively, the Cowboys were banged up and missing their two best players, but you wouldn’t know it. They limited the Steelers to 3.4 yards per carry and, for the first time all year, did not give up a run of 10 yards or more. They also limited Justin Fields through the air, as Fields posted his worst completion rate on the season at 55.6%. He failed to connect on any of his six attempts 20+ yards down the field, and the pass rush – playing without Micah Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence, or Marshawn Kneeland – managed to pressure Fields on 36.7% of his dropbacks.
This game was always going to be a test of this team’s resiliency. Beating the Steelers is never easy, despite what some national talking heads who all picked Pittsburgh to win this game might say, and winning this game with all the injuries the Cowboys had would only make it harder. But this is the type of win McCarthy has been striving for in reshaping the mindset of this team. To get that kind of win in Pittsburgh, where McCarthy grew up and was raised in this style of football, has to make it all the more sweet.
Now, the Cowboys get to make an actual homecoming, as they’ll head back down to Dallas to host another tough and gritty team in the Lions. That won’t be easy either, and the Cowboys have yet to win a game in AT&T Stadium this season, but this win should provide an air of confidence in the locker room even if it won’t carry over to the fanbase just yet.
