The Dallas Cowboys won on Sunday and we have some thoughts about it all one day later.
The Dallas Cowboys are winners of three of their last four. When this sentence is true in the month of December, then you are generally talking about a very good football team.
Obviously that is not the case in our current moment as the Cowboys are a month away from having only 2025 to look forward to (in all likelihood). Multiple things can be true at same time though, and while this season is just about ready to be put on the shelf and never talked about again, the way that the team is currently playing is objectively impressive.
This is all the more true when we consider how they got here. Following their loss to the Houston Texans the Cowboys were 3-7 and on the verge of some truly diabolical records. Since then they stuck their foot in the ground and beat a Washington Commanders team that has impressed even more ever since, took care of business against the New York Giants on Thanksgiving Day, arguably should have beaten the Cincinnati Bengals and thoroughly dominated a Carolina Panthers team that had been playing really well as of late.
Given the state of the Cowboys, the idea that Carolina was putting it together will be lost all of a sudden and people will likely dismiss it as “just the Panthers.” Make no mistake about it though, the Cowboys dismantled the Panthers outside of a horrible two-play sequence near the end of the first half.
Here are our thoughts on the game and where the Cowboys stand after it with one day’s worth of thought and reflection.
Marist Liufau will be an important part of next season’s defense
It remains devastating that DeMarvion Overshown is all but officially lost for the 2025 season. He was really emerging as a star and being without him will hurt this group. Those circumstances have made it difficult to feel good about anything else. But understanding that we are having a different and separate conversation, the opportunity that has opened for Marist Liufau is one that is being capitalized on.
Liufau came in against the Bengals and made an immediate impact. He continued that solid form on Sunday at Carolina with a forced fumble on the first defensive possession that Dallas was a part of. All game long he was a force within the middle of the group.
It seems fair to say that the Cowboys found a legitimate player at the end of last year’s third round, one who they are going to need to depend on for some time. Thankfully he appears ready for the challenge.
Rico Dowdle’s performance is informative for the future in many ways
There is no question that Rico Dowdle is running incredibly well for the Cowboys right now. He should absolutely be celebrated and applauded.
We are about a month away from NFL draft conversations kicking off in earnest and there are plenty of Cowboys fans who want to see the team draft Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty. Jeanty was incredible and will probably have some special moments in the College Football Playoff that justify the hype, but I feel like Biff Tannen in that something about all of this feels very familiar.
In the lost season of 2015 the Cowboys proved that they could, for all intents and purposes, plug anyone behind their offensive line and produce a viable performance. Darren McFadden wasn’t the featured back until that season was already well lost and still finished with 1,000 yards.
You would think that such a performance would have convinced Dallas that they could have found another way to improve at the running back spot without spending the fourth overall pick on the position. The Cowboys will obviously not be picking that high, but again, doesn’t this feel somewhat similar?
We know that the Cowboys are going to ignore free agency based on who they have been for over a decade now which means that their first-round pick (wherever it lands) is the most premium resource that they will spend over the offseason. Devoting it to Jeanty, as talented as he is, feels like a luxury this team can’t afford, especially when they are seeing what someone like Rico Dowdle is doing at the moment. To add to the point, McFadden did what he did behind the peak version of the offensive line we all knew and loved, Dowdle is doing it behind a makeshift group.
This is a very important lesson that the Cowboys need to show they have learned.
There is a very legitimate need for another reliable wide receiver
In the stock report for this week it was noted that the Cowboys have gone into two different seasons with a high level of dependence on Jalen Tolbert. Neither has panned out. This is unfortunate, and while there are examples to prove every point, the overwhelming likelihood is that Tolbert is not going to turn into a proper running-mate for CeeDee Lamb. That is something that has to be acted on.
For too long now the Cowboys have depended on their star wide receiver to lift them up individually, whether that be CeeDee Lamb or Amari Cooper before him. There was a brief moment in spurts of the 2021 season where we got to see them together, but injuries and what not impacted seeing the duo operating together with one another.
There are a number of needs on this roster and we can debate the order that we want to put them in, but in today’s NFL you absolutely need a legitimate threat as your “second” wide receiver. So much is made about getting help for Dak Prescott, and while this is residually accomplishing that, CeeDee Lamb needs help.
Hopefully the Cowboys have learned this lesson along with the many others that we have challenged them to take away from this season. Jalen Tolbert is a fine depth wide receiver and can have his moments as this game exemplified, but the time to act on more is here.
