The Dallas Cowboys defense is playing at a historic level right now.
The Dallas Cowboys took care of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with relative ease, despite the way things ended, on Sunday night. From top to bottom it was arguably their best overall performance of the season.
You are likely aware of the fact that Dallas has won four of their last five games, but there are several other things happening and that just recently happened to the team that you may not have a full grasp on. This is where the amazing tools at Stathead and Pro Football Reference come in handy.
Every week we comb through what the Cowboys have done and where they currently stand through the lens of both franchise and NFL history at large. The results are often quite revealing.
Let’s begin.
The defense has a turnover in 8 consecutive games, a pretty rare thing
The Cowboys recorded a turnover (more than one to be clear) on Sunday night against Tampa Bay. While they had multiple (more on that in a bit) the one that DaRon Bland had at the very end was clearly the most memorable.
Ultimately that Dallas had a single turnover in general is the point of this particular discussion. Dallas has now recorded a takeaway in eight consecutive games which is the longest streak in a single season for the team since they reached nine six years ago in 2018.
This is only the ninth time this century that Dallas has a streak of such kind reaching at least eight games, and what is particularly amazing about that is that four of them have been had with Mike Zimmer as the defense coordinator. If not obvious, they are the ones highlighted.
Micah Parsons is officially in the 50 sack club
The NBC broadcast made note during the game of the fact that Micah Parsons reached 50 career sacks. It is absurd how productive he has been so early in his career. He needed only 61 games to reach 50 which is just an unbelievable thing. He is the 8=eighth player in NFL history to reach 50 sacks in 61 career games or fewer.
Look at Reggie White in his first 61 games. He was one of one.
It is almost impossible for the Cowboys to rush for so few yards and win
You may have noticed that the Cowboys were not getting much done on the ground against Tampa Bay. All told they finished the night with 31 rushing yards. It turns out that the 31 rushing yards Dallas had was the second-fewest that they have ever had in a winning effort. The only other time which Dallas had fewer rushing yards and walked away with the win was in 1987 when they ran for 26 against the New York Giants.
Sometimes it is just your night.
Ezekiel Elliott’s odd stat line hasn’t happened all too often
In looking at the game log you may have noticed that Ezekiel Elliott had one carry for one yard. That particular carry wound up in a touchdown. Having a 1/1/1 stat line is a sort of rare thing, not supremely rare given specialty fullbacks and stuff like that, particularly as it relates to the Dallas Cowboys.
Zeke’s instance was the first 1/1/1 had by a Cowboys running back (sometimes quarterbacks do it) since Lance Dunbar back in the early days of the 2016 season.
CeeDee Lamb has had back-to-back games over 100 receiving yards with a quarterback over than Dak Prescott
Tim Heitman-Imagn Images
There is no cool stat box to exemplify this, but in looking at the game I realized that CeeDee Lamb had a 100-yard receiving game for the second week in a row. What is notable about this is that it marks the first time in Lamb’s career where he posted back-to-back games with over 100 receiving yards with a quarterback other than Dak Prescott throwing to him in both games in question.
He had previously done it in 2021 where Dak was the quarterback on the road against the New England Patriots and then Cooper Rush was against the Minnesota Vikings, but as noted that doesn’t fit this criteria.
Baker Mayfield had an oddly specific career day against the Cowboys
The game ended as an impressive one for Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield as he ultimately had over 300 yards passing and 40 yards rushing. Interestingly, this was only the fourth instance ever in which a quarterback met both of these thresholds in a game against the Cowboys. Mayfield became the second to lose.
The defense has dominated more often this season than you think
Obviously the Cowboys defense has been playing really well as of late. They are generating turnovers and sacking the quarterback at impressive rates. Sunday night specifically marked the sixth instance this season in which Dallas had at least four sacks and multiple turnovers in the same game. Obviously that is a lot.
The Cowboys are now the only defense in the NFL to do this at least six times this season and one of only eight teams in the last 15 years to do it at least six times in a season in general. Interestingly, Mike McCarthy’s Super Bowl win with the Green Bay Packers came over the Pittsburgh Steelers who are at the bottom of this list.
It is becoming common for rookie Cowboys defenders to shine early
One of the more impressive players as of late for the Cowboys has been rookie linebacker Marist Liufau. He has come along quite well since getting a bigger role after the DeMarvion Overshown injury.
Liufau has forced a fumble in back-to-back games, although the one against Tampa was not recovered by Dallas. Still, a forced fumble is a forced fumble.
Of the last six players across the NFL who forced a fumble in consecutive games in their first season, three of them are Cowboys! Marist, Damone Clark and Micah Parsons each did it in their first season.
Dallas was out-rushed by 100+ yards and still won
We discussed up top how the Cowboys did very little on the ground. On the other side of things, the Buccaneers had legitimate success running the ball. All told the Bucs out-gained the Cowboys by more than 100 yards from a rushing perspective specifically. It makes the fact that Tampa lost all the more strange. The Buccaneers became just the 13th team ever to out-rush the Cowboys by 100+ yards and still lose the game. Such an event had not happened in over a decade.
It has been a rough start for Jonathan Mingo
Sunday night was another tough one for Jonathan Mingo, at least as far as putting up numbers. Mingo has played in six games with the Cowboys and has two receptions off of 11 targets.
The above list is every player in the Stathead database who has no more than two catches off of a minimum of 11 targets in their first six games with a team. As you can see, this is hardly elite company.
