Cowboys stars play their best, new ones in the making with season opening road win 33-17 at Browns

Everything worked well for the Cowboys in Cleveland.

What offseason contract drama? Just hours before their season opening kickoff in Cleveland against the Browns, the Dallas Cowboys secured Dak Prescott as their franchise quarterback of the future with a four-year, $240 million deal that makes him the highest-paid player in NFL history. Literally just in time for the regular season, the Cowboys took this huge step towards quieting what was a long distraction, and helping bring the focus back to the talent of this football team – which was on full display with an efficient game that saw Dallas jump ahead 27-3 in the third quarter and hold on 33-17 to start 1-0 for the second season in a row.

It was a mix of other players with big contracts and expectations like the freshly-inked CeeDee Lamb, or Micah Parsons setting the tone throughout. Maybe even more impressive for the Cowboys was the way new players like Demarvion Overshown, Caelen Carson, Tyler Guyton, Cooper Beebe, and even Ezekiel Elliott in his return all fit in seamlessly behind these stars to give the Cowboys a complete effort to blowout an AFC playoff team from a year ago.

27 straight points from the Cowboys after a Browns opening field goal was more than enough for Mike Zimmer’s defense to shine in the defensive coordinator’s debut, making the Browns one-dimensional and getting after Deshaun Watson in the pocket. It was a familiar game plan for the Cowboys in a lot of ways. Trust Prescott to play at a high level with Mike McCarthy calling plays, trust the defense to bring down the level of the opposing quarterback, and trust special teams to come up with a potential game-breaking play which they did when KaVontae Turpin scored his first punt return TD with the Cowboys in the third quarter.

The Cowboys are hopeful the new wrinkles they did show, as a team on a season-long mission to prove they’ve learned from recent playoff failures, can make this win just one of many as they kept pace with the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 1 to open up a one-game advantage on the New York Giants and Washington Commanders.

Before the Cowboys return home for their AT&T Stadium debut against a Saints team that won by the widest margin of week 1, 47-10 against the Panthers, here are a few notes on their performance at the Browns.

Jeff Lange / USA TODAY NETWORK

• The Browns opening drive was cut short after a 4th-and-2 false start penalty took their offense off the field and led to a Dustin Hopkins 51-yard field goal. It was Micah Parsons’ presence that helped draw the false start against Cleveland right tackle Dawand Jones, who needed all of the headstart he could get to deal with the speed of Parsons on the edge. Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence stole the show in the front seven for the Cowboys working against two backup tackles for the Browns, but the interior showed up as well with Osa Odighizuwa making his season debut and chasing down Watson on a scramble on third down before the penalty. It was the type of play that showed why Odighizuwa earned the “street clothes treatment” for the entire preseason as the Cowboys are not exactly deep at DT and will be counting on Odighizuwa to push the pocket consistently.

The Cowboys were known as an aggressive, get up field at all costs defense up front under Dan Quinn. On Sunday they looked just as dominant while staying sound in their run fits and pass rush contain as a defense still loaded with talent for veteran play caller Zimmer. This game was not a true test of how improved the Cowboys are in run defense, with the Browns playing without Nick Chubb and forced to drop back pass 45 times after falling behind, but their size and ability to shed blocks in the front seven was much more apparent.

For now, the Cowboys best run defense may still be some version of not letting the other team get comfortable running it thanks to the pressure their own offense presents, but the foundation was clearly laid for them to stand up against teams that will be more ready to test their physicality between the tackles.

• After going backwards on their opening drive on offense, the Cowboys turned to two players they will put a lot of trust in all season long to score their first points of the season. Rico Dowdle, CeeDee Lamb, and Brandin Cooks were the only players to touch the ball on a six-play, 70-yard scoring drive to give the Cowboys a lead they’d never surrender. Prescott’s incompletions on this drive came to Turpin and TE Jake Ferguson, who was later hurt and didn’t return to action.

It’s easy to forget that the Cowboys only scored at least 30 points three times on the road last season, at the lowly Commanders, Giants, and Panthers. When lighting up the scoreboard at home, they had no issues creating space for Lamb and Cooks to take over games, and it was encouraging to see McCarthy’s scheme get the same looks for these receivers in a road test against Jim Schwartz’s defense to start the year.

Cooks’ touchdown to open the scoring was a corner route he made a living on scoring in home games in his first season with the team, doing so on Sunday against the blitz as Prescott stood in and delivered the ball downfield.

Ken Blaze-Imagn Images

Lamb’s touches on the first touchdown drive were a ten-yard jet sweep to the opposite side of Myles Garrett and a 34-yard completion against Denzel Ward. Lamb carried the ball three times for 25 yards, getting him involved instantly and helping Dallas keep an aggressive Cleveland front four honest. The Cowboys being able to score with only their top players moving the ball early opened up other looks like heavy tight end sets that aided rookie Tyler Guyton in dealing with Garrett on the edge, or swing passes to Ezekiel Elliott who looked like his old self with ten carries for 40 yards and a touchdown, and two receptions for 12 yards.

One of the surprises from the Browns defense was their lack of aggression towards rookie center Cooper Beebe making his NFL debut at a new position in a hostile environment, rarely putting a down lineman over him or showing pressure in his gaps. Some of this may have been respect for the way McCarthy will readily call a ball-controlling, high-efficiency game with Prescott in full command of distributing the ball to his playmakers. If more teams are going to give the Cowboys this respect in the pass game, it will be interesting to watch the evolution of a run game that opened the season looking to establish Elliott as their lead back, but overall struggled in the second half to really keep the offense on the field and close this game easily.

Jeff Lange / USA TODAY NETWORK

One example of this came after the Browns first touchdown in the third quarter, to cut the lead to 17. The Cowboys got the ball back and quickly went three and out with a deep incompetion to Cooks, jet sweep to Lamb, and then third down incompletion to Lamb. The Browns took over with a chance to really get back in the game, but the Cowboys settled in with a Kendricks sack to end this drive and Overshown sack on fourth down to end the next Browns drive.

• It was no secret coming into this game that the Cowboys secondary was going to need CB Jourdan Lewis to step up in the absence of DaRon Bland, and he did just that in both coverage and run support. On the play before Eric Kendricks’ interception, one of two for the Cowboys on the day with Trevon Diggs coming up with the other, Lewis was in great position on what should have been an easy out route completion in the quick game for Watson. If not for Parsons getting in Watson’s face and batting down the pass, Lewis may have closed on the ball and intercepted it himself, but Kendricks ended the drive with one of many highlight plays for a completely new-look linebacking unit for the Cowboys.

Kendricks looked every bit the natural scheme fit under Zimmer that he’s been in the past with the interception as well as two sacks, and Demarvion Overshown made an impressive regular-season debut by showing off the range, instincts, and ability to break down in space and make open field tackles that have made him a fan favorite from the beginning.

The Cowboys did all of this on defense while apparently operating in mostly “base” looks, with Parsons and Diggs telling the media post game that they operated out of only three looks despite having upwards of 50 already installed under Zimmer. No matter the look they’re in, winning one-on-one matchups and getting bodies to the football are keys and the Cowboys showed an ability to do this at a high level all afternoon in Cleveland.

In addition to Lewis, rookie Caelen Carson more than held his own as a tough corner that can contest throws with his length.

It is hard to truly call any Week 1 game an upset, as the whole league is on notice with starters coming off ice after sitting out the preseason, and the intensity of regular-season snaps being a great equalizer in the early goings of a season. The Cowboys were not favorites on the road at the Browns though, and it’s hard to imagine many other teams being near the top of the list with them as ones that needed a strong start to this season to quiet outside noise.

The football side of things under Mike McCarthy remain strong, and now is the time for all of that to be the only focus as the Cowboys look to realize the full potential of this deep roster each week. The Cowboys couldn’t do much in just their first four quarters of the season to fully erase the memory of how 2023 ended in the Wild Card round, but for anyone that needed a reminder of how good of a team that’s rattled off 12 regular season wins in three straight years can be, this win in Cleveland was just that.