With the Philadelphia Eagles losing to the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday night, the Dallas Cowboys, somehow, someway, are still alive in the playoff hunt. As things stand, the Cowboys’ only real chance to make the playoffs is to win out and hope the Eagles fumble the division lead.
Dallas has no room for error, so they’ll need to make some adjustments after last week’s poor performance against the Lions. With that thought in mind, here are two players the Cowboys should use more this week against the Vikings.
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1) WR Ryan Flournoy
Not much good came out of the Cowboys’ Week 14 matchup against the Lions, but one positive was Ryan Flournoy’s breakout performance. After CeeDee Lamb was forced to leave the game with a concussion, Flournoy stepped up in a big way and was Dallas’ most productive receiver the entire second half.
Flournoy finished the game with a career-high nine catches for 115 yards to go with the third touchdown of his NFL career. It wasn’t just the stats he put up that were impressive; the 26-year-old’s ability to step in mid-game and be the most impactful receiver on a talented Dallas offense was eye-opening.
When given an opportunity, Flournoy showed he’s capable of being more than just a WR3 on this Cowboys’ offense. While he clearly isn’t at the level of Dallas’ star duo of Lamb and Pickens, Flournoy has worked his way up to arguably being the Cowboys’ third-best option in the passing game.
Even if Lamb can play this week against the Vikings, the Cowboys need to find ways to get Flournoy involved on offense. In passing downs, there is no reason KaVontae Turpin should be on the field and Flournoy should not. The big-bodied receiver has shown an ability to make contested catches and impactful plays down the field, something Turpin has not, and that should be the sole reason Flournoy takes almost all the snaps as Dallas’ third receiver.
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2) LB Logan Wilson
The Cowboys’ plan at linebacker during the Lions game was mindboggling. Despite numerous bad run fits and consistently getting washed out of plays, sometimes without a defender even nearby, Dallas decided to keep starting linebacker Kenneth Murray on the field for nearly the entire game last Thursday.
Dallas’ defense as a whole put together a putrid performance, so it’s not fair to solely blame Murray for their struggles, but the Cowboys’ coaching staff not making a change at linebacker in this game is almost nearing the level of coaching malpractice.
While Murray continued to struggle, Dallas let newly-acquired linebacker Logan Wilson sit on the sideline for most of the contest. Wilson finished the night with 26 defensive snaps, almost half of which came in the second half once the game was starting to slip away.
It’s clear Wilson isn’t the guy he was a few years ago, but he absolutely can’t put on display a worse product of football than Murray is at this point and time. While physically he may not be in his prime, Wilson is a player who has been around the league a long time, so at the very least, he will know his assignment and do what is asked of him on each play based on past history.
This week against the Vikings, Dallas’ coaching staff needs to finally rip the band-aid off and give all of Kenneth Murray’s defensive snaps to Logan Wilson or another one of Dallas’ young linebackers.
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