As famously predicted in song, the Saints sure came marching into Arlington this past Sunday. But the jazz standard’s lyrics never mention that they’d then go on to steamroll over the high-flying Cowboys once they got there. The defense was downright awful on Sunday- against both the rush and the pass- and, incredibly, their performance looks even worse on a film re-watch after the fact. But there were problems on the other side of the ball, too; one receiver who had impressed during the summer took a serious step back, and while quarterback Dak Prescott valiantly tried to spark a comeback, his play in Week 2 cannot be completely beyond reproach.
Believe it or not, though, there were a few silver linings to be found. Luke Schoonmaker played well in place of the injured Jake Ferguson, a small-school project finally started to show what the team saw when they made him a third-round draft pick, and Brandon Aubrey unlocked a dangerous new weapon within his one-man arsenal.
The team- and Cowboys fans, too- may be content to just burn the tape from Week 2’s 44-19 no-show, but first, we’ll take one more look back to dig into the good, the bad, and the ugly from Sunday’s holy smackdown at the hands of the Saints.
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Good: Jalen Tolbert proving worth the wait
The third-year receiver out of South Alabama was M.I.A. as a rookie and only started to blossom in his second season last year. On Sunday, he was one of the few bright spots for the entire Cowboys roster. Tolbert caught six of his team-high nine targets for 82 yards and made two huge plays on the same third-quarter drive. His impressive 39-yard grab converted a third down to put the offense inside the Saints’ 10, and then he hustled back to a loose ball three plays later to salvage the possession and turn a surefire turnover into a field goal try. Playing the most snaps of any Dallas receiver in Week 2 and turning in three of the team’s seven longest plays, he may now be the staff’s clear-cut preference at WR3.
Bad: Defense had no answers for Saints run game
Reports of Mike Zimmer having definitively fixed the Cowboys’ run defense were, it turns out, greatly exaggerated. After a solid season opener in Cleveland, the D-line let the Saints march all over them in Week 2. Twenty-nine-year-old Alvin Kamara, who hadn’t rushed for over 100 rushing yards in a game since the 2022 season, notched his fifth-highest total ever with 115 and scored three touchdowns on the ground. (He added 65 yards and another score as a receiver out of the backfield, too.) And it wasn’t just a great day for the five-time Pro Bowler; Jamaal Williams, Taysom Hill, Rashid Shaheed, and Chris Olave all averaged at least 4.3 yards per rushing attempt against Dallas on Sunday. That is very concerning, with Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson on deck.
Ugly: Missed throws early dig even deeper hole
To be crystal clear, Dak Prescott was not the reason the Cowboys got steamrolled. But several of his 12 incompletions on the day happened to come at brutal moments and severely hampered the team as they tried to play catch-up with a New Orleans offense that scored touchdowns on their first six possessions. Especially disappointing were the deep-ball misses: one to Rico Dowdle and another to Tolbert on their opening drive, one to Jalen Brooks that was intercepted (more on that one later), and multiple misfires to CeeDee Lamb. All were in the first half; any might have scored and sparked a turnaround before things got out of hand. Prescott and Lamb did connect on the gorgeous 65-yard touchdown catch-and-run, but that was more a byproduct of Lamb’s post-grab slip-and-shake move than anything. Prescott’s 69% completion percentage was certainly serviceable, but in a track meet of a game, the drops stood out.
Good: Brandon Aubrey is positively weapons-grade
If the Cowboys were to name a team MVP after two weeks, it’s Aubrey. The second-year kicker knocked all four of his field goal tries through, with a 38-yarder being the shortest. Cowboys fans don’t have to think too far back to recall a time when a 38-yarder was a little dicey; now anything from 60 yards and in is practically considered a gimme for the ex-soccer star. But despite personally scoring 54% of the team’s points so far in 2024, Aubrey is also acing the league’s new dynamic kickoffs. His squib shot to start the game was perfectly placed in the corner of the landing zone, pinning the Saints at their own 20 instead of the 30. (Not that it deterred them from scoring.) As he and John Fassel continue to experiment with kickoff strategies and Aubrey dials in his ball placement, opponents will likely have to regularly contend with poor starting field position.
Bad: Jalen Brooks doesn’t help his cause in WR rotation
The 2023 undrafted free agent had, by all accounts, a fantastic camp and was earning the trust of Prescott and his Cowboys coaches. He may have lost a good bit of it Sunday. On a gotta-have-it drive late in the second quarter with the offense driving toward a potential touchdown that would have kept the game in reach, Brooks slipped on an in-route and watched New Orleans cornerback Paulson Adebo haul in the pick instead. It was a gutting beat at the worst possible time. The Saints went on to score again, and the rout was on. From the Fox booth, Tom Brady said he wouldn’t go back to Brooks again in the game. Prescott did (right away, actually), and the South Carolina product reeled in the pass for a 10-yard gain. But it proved to be his only reception of the day, and Brooks ultimately didn’t help himself in the Cowboys’ crowded WR3 rotation.
Ugly: Cowboys’ lack of pressure on Carr
Saints offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak managed to not only expose the Cowboys’ run defense, he absolutely stonewalled the Dallas pass rush, too. Derek Carr was sacked just a single time and got hit on only one other occasion. (And neither came from Micah Parsons or DeMarcus Lawrence.) All day, Carr had ample time to sit back in the pocket and search for an open man, of which there was seemingly always at least one… usually pretty far downfield. Carr finished with a passer rating of 125.0 and had three pass plays of over 35 yards on the day.
