Vegas doesn’t think the Cowboys will beat the Buccaneers in Week 16 K.D. Drummond The Dallas Cowboys find themselves two games under .500 yet again. It’s been a tale of two seasons for America’s Team this season. In recent years, the club is used to being dominant at home and average on the road, leading to 12-win seasons. In 2024 they’re now used to being dominated at home and are surprisingly good on the road. Sunday’s victory in Carolina improved their travel record to 5-2 on the season. Unfortunately the club is just 1-6 at AT&T Stadium and until recently they weren’t very competitive in those contests. Mix it all together and there aren’t many reasons for the Vegas sharps to have much confidence in the Cowboys earning their second home win since December 2023. The Cowboys open as 45-point underdogs in Week 16 when they host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, according to BetMGM. Any fan feeling super comfortable about things can wager on the money line, which sits at +165 for a Dallas home win, and -200 to bet on Baker Mayfield’s Bucs winning outright. The over/under is set to 48.5. Dallas could be eliminated from playoff contention by the time they take the field on Sunday night. If the Washington Commanders win their noon kickoff against the NFC East leading Philadelphia Eagles, then Dallas’ hopes are dashed. That win would give the Eagles the NFC East title. Related Links Read all the best Cowboys coverage at the Austin American-Statesman and Cowboys Wire.

Cowboys safety fined for Week 14 hip-drop tackle vs Bengals Todd Brock The NFL has been seeking to take the so-called “hip-drop tackle” out of the sport. Now they’re taking a big chunk of change out of Donovan Wilson’s pocket for deploying it last week. The league has fined the Cowboys safety $16,883 for his fourth-quarter tackle of Bengals tight end Tanner Hudson during the 27-20 loss Monday night. The play did not incur a penalty during the game, but league officials have determined that Wilson’s actions met the requirements to be classified as a hip-drop tackle. The move falls under the category of unnecessary roughness and is therefore subject to a fine, even without being flagged on the field. According to a rule change for the 2024 season, a hip-drop tackle can be called if a player grabs or wraps the runner with both hands or arms and also “unweights himself by swiveling and dropping his hips and/or lower body, landing on and trapping the runner’s leg(s) at or below the knee.” [affiliatewidget_smgtolocal] The move has caused severe injury to several high-profile players in recent years, including running back Tony Pollard while playing for the Cowboys during the 2022 postseason. San Francisco safety Jimmie Ward used the hip-drop technique to bring Pollard to the ground; Pollard suffered a high ankle sprain and fractured fibula. Fourteen months after that injury, NFL owners unanimously voted to make it illegal, following a film review of 20,000 tackles that calculated the hip-drop technique resulting in an injury rate “20 times the others.” Though the hip-drop is punishable on the field with a 15-yard walkoff and an automatic first down, it’s resulted in more monetary fines after the fact than penalties on the field during its first year of enforcement. Wilson is the first Cowboys player to be fined for a hip-drop tackle. He was previously docked $11,255 for a Week 5 late hit in the team’s win over Pittsburgh. Read all the best Cowboys coverage at the Austin American-Statesman and Cowboys Wire.

Cowboys vs Panthers: 3 things to love about the Week 15 opponent Ben Grimaldi The Dallas Cowboys will be on the road to face the Carolina Panthers in Week 15 and despite their opponents’ recent surge, there are reasons to love the matchup. Both teams are coming off tough losses that could’ve been wins if they made the plays at the right moments. For the Cowboys, it was botching situational football on a blocked punt, and for the Panthers, it was dropping a touchdown that would’ve made the Philadelphia Eagles the laughingstock of the league. Neither team was able to get the job done, which is why they have a combined eight wins on the year.Now the Cowboys and Panthers are set to play with Mike McCarthy’s team clinging to miniscule playoff hopes that could apparently save his job. Here are three things to love about the Cowboys’ Week 15 matchup with the Panthers. Horrible rush defense Brad Penner-Imagn Images If you thought the Cowboys had a bad rushing defense, you haven’t seen the Panthers attempt to stop the run. It’s a defense that ranks dead last in the league against the run, allowing over 170 yards a game on the ground. That’s more than 23 yards worse than the next team, and almost 30 yards worse than the Cowboys, who rank 30th against the run. The Panthers have allowed six running backs to run for over 100 yards this season, and eight to run for at least 80 yards. It’s also a defense that’s surrendered 19 scores on the ground. That should be music to running back Rico Dowdle’s ears. The veteran RB is coming off consecutive 100-yard rushing games, and he had a career high 131 yards in the loss on Monday Night Football. Dowdle and the running game is heating up and now they get a putrid rushing defense to try for a third straight 100-yard outing. The Panthers are giving up an NFL-worst five yards a carry, which should be good news after Dowdle ran for 7.3 ypc last week. The Cowboys will love going up against the worst rushing defenses in the league in Week 15. Lack of receiving weapons Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports The Cowboys played with their top trio of cornerbacks for the first time on the season in Week 14, but they were torched by an elite wide receiver in Cincinnati Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase. Don’t expect a similar problem against the Panthers’ group of receivers, who don’t have anyone nearly as good. Carolina’s passing game is 27th in the league, gaining just under 187 ypg, and their lead WR is rookie Xavier Legette, who has just 39 catches for 432 yards and four scores. Legette has a bright future, but he’s not ready to be the main passing option in an offense. It was Legette’s dropped touchdown last week that cost the Panthers a win and despite his physical tools, he’s not a WR1 yet. The best option for the Panthers is veteran WR Adam Thielen, who’s had two big games after coming back from injury. At 34-years old, Thielen can still find his way open, he’s caught 17 balls for 201 yards and a touchdown since returning, but he’s not the player he once was. After Legette and Thielen, no Panthers WR has more than 26 catches or surpassed 300 yards on the season. Those are the only two legitimate threats at WR for quarterback Bryce Young. At tight end, another rookie, Ja’Tavion Sanders, leads the team with 29 catches for just 302 yards. There aren’t many receiving options to threaten the Cowboys’ defense. After whom they faced last week, the Dallas must love matching up against the Panthers WRs in Week 15. Lacks a pass rush The Panthers’ defense has a problem getting to the QB, they have just 25 sacks on the year, good for 28th in the league. After trading away their best pass rusher in Brian Burns last offseason, the defense had no one else to command attention off the edge, and it’s been a problem. Defensive end A’Shawn Robinson leads the team with 4.5 sacks, which is a career high for him, 2.5 more than his previous best seasons. The next best pass rushers have been linebacker Josey Jewell and veteran edge rusher Jadeveon Clowney, who both have 3.5 on the year. Not exactly a murderer’s row for the Cowboys’ offensive line to block. The Panthers have been getting more pressure in the last few weeks, but they’re a team who struggles to get after the QB consistently. If the line can give QB Cooper Rush time, the Cowboys should be able to put up points through the air, where the Panthers are next to last in the league in allowing passing touchdowns. Read all the best Cowboys coverage at the Austin American-Statesman and Cowboys Wire.

Cowboys to lose CB Trevon Diggs for remainder of 2024 season Todd Brock The Cowboys’ unceremonious exit to the 2024 season has been long, painful, and gradual. In fact, the team’s top players have been dropping out here and there, one at a time since before Week 1. Now, another one bites the dust. Cornerback Trevon Diggs, already ruled out of Sunday’s game versus the Carolina Panthers, is now reportedly facing knee surgery and will miss the remainder of the season. The news was first reported by Fox Sports’ Jay Glazer, who posted the development to X on Saturday, shortly after it had been revealed that Diggs- who had been listed as questionable- would not be traveling with his teammates to Charlotte for their Week 15 matchup. Diggs had just returned from a two-game absence to appear in Monday night’s date with Cincinnati, playing every defensive snap in the 27-20 loss. It’s unclear if Diggs re-aggravated that injury or suffered an entirely new one, but an MRI this week on Diggs’s still-problematic left knee showed damage that would require surgery following the season. The decision has been made that the end of his season is now. WFAA’s Ed Werder reports that, per his source, the injury to Diggs’s knee is “significant,” though specifics have not been made public. Diggs played just two games in 2023 before an ACL tear- also in the left knee- ended that season, too. When the 2024 campaign finally ends for the Cowboys, the former second-round draft pick out of Alabama will have appeared in only 13 of their last 34 regular-season contests. [affiliatewidget_smgtolocal] Todd Archer of ESPN cites his own source as saying that this most recent issue “is not related to” the 2023 ACL repair. Diggs is now the fifth Cowboys’ Pro Bowler to be on injured reserve this season, joining Dak Prescott, Zack Martin, DeMarcus Lawrence, and DaRon Bland. Eight other Cowboys are currently on IR, too. Prescott and Martin have already seen their seasons come to a premature end due to injury, as have Sam Williams, John Stephens Jr., Markquese Bell, and DeMarvion Overshown. And now, Diggs. Read all the best Cowboys coverage at the Austin American-Statesman and Cowboys Wire.

Rico Dowdle was always answer at RB, why didn’t the Cowboys know it sooner? Mike Crum The Dallas Cowboys aren’t mathematically eliminated from the NFL playoffs, but they go into their Week 15 game against the Carolina Panthers needing a miracle to get there. Miracles don’t seem to exist in the 2024 season for Dallas, though. They found a way to lose against the Cincinnati Bengals, and the lowly, three-win Panthers are favored for the first time in their last 33 games. Dallas is in the final stretch of a lousy season that saw their quarterback and many of their young and up and coming stars lost to injuries. They need to keep an eye on the future for these games, even as they refuse to relent on a doomed playoff pursuit. Although not an assured part of the long-term vision originally, Rico Dowdle has recently shown he could be one of those guys. Many will wonder why it took so long for Dowdle to find himself in the role of lead back. It might have been coach’s belief in a committee, the front office wanting Ezekiel Elliott to get touches, or worrying about Dowdle’s workload because of his injury history. He was only given more than 12 attempts once in his first nine games, even though he has been a top-10 rusher in success rate and averaged 4.3 yards per attempt. Still, for the first 11 weeks, he couldn’t even get 50% of the carries. Starting with the game against the Washington Commanders, Dowdle has taken 70% of the carries and produced. He went from averaging 10 attempts and 40 yards per game, to 19 carries for 109 yard averages. He ran for more than 40 yards over expected (RYOE) against both the New York Giants and Cincinnati.  Comparing him to Detroit Lions first-round pick Jahmyr Gibbs in the last three weeks, Dowdle has more yards rushing, yards after contact, forced missed tackles, and has one less run for 10 or more yards. Only three running backs on the season have a 54% success rate or better and more than 4.5 yards per carry. Dowdle is one; the others are Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry. If extrapolated over 17 contests, Dowdle would have rushed for 1,853 yards on 323 attempts and scored six times. With his next matchup is against the Panthers, the team with the worst rushing defense in the NFL, Dowdle has an opportunity to extend his string of superb performances even further. You can find Mike Crum on Twitter @cdpiglet or YouTube on the Across the Cowboys Podcast. Read all the best Cowboys coverage at the Austin American-Statesman and Cowboys Wire.

Chubba Hubbard’s ascension among 3 reasons for Cowboys to hate facing Panthers in Week 15 Ben Grimaldi The Week 15 matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and the Carolina Panthers is set to be a real barnburner. It doesn’t get any bigger than having a 5-8 team go on the road for the first time in three weeks to play a 3-10 team looking for just their second win at home. Looks can be deceiving, though, as both teams are playing some of their best ball. Despite their record, there are things for the Cowboys to hate about playing the Panthers in Week 15. It hasn’t been an easy first season under head coach Dave Canales, but things are looking up for his team. Saying they’ve turned a corner might be a bit too much, but the Cowboys’ opponent aren’t the pushovers their record suggests. This game felt like a reprieve for the Cowboys when the schedule was released, yet it’s now just another contest to play out the season. Here are three things to hate about the Week 15 opponent. Improving team Dec 8, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images The Panthers have just three wins this season, but they have shown improvement as the year has gone on. In the first eight weeks of the season, the Panthers were 1-7 and losing by an average of 23 points. It was a team that couldn’t score and had trouble stopping offenses from putting points on the board. Over the first half of the year, the Panthers replaced their starting quarterback in the lineup and had given up at least 28 points in six of their seven losses. This was a bad team on both sides of the ball. In the last five weeks, however, Carolina has turned things around. They’ve won two games, taken some of the best teams in the league down to the wire, and their average margin of defeat is just four points. There are no participation trophies in the NFL, but it shows how well the team is currently playing. Canales’ team lost by only three points to the Kansas City Chiefs in a contest just before Thanksgiving, then took the NFC South leading Tampa Bay Buccaneers to overtime before losing that game, and then had the Philadelphia Eagles beat late but a dropped touchdown cost them the chance to close out a win. The Panthers don’t look like a three-win team right now, and they are playing their best football late in the season. It won’t be easy to beat a solid team that appears to be peaking. Chuba Hubbard Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports The Panthers might have ruined a few Cowboys draft dreams when they selected Texas running back Jonathan Brooks in the second round of last year’s draft, but that move hasn’t worked out yet. Luckily for their offense, they have another outstanding RB option to carry the load without Brooks in Chuba Hubbard. The former Oklahoma St. running back is one of just six ball carriers to already have over 1,000 yards rushing with 1,011, a new career high. Hubbard is averaging 4.7 yards a carry, has rushed for eight scores, and has six games with over 92 yards rushing. The fourth-year runner has been one of the best RBs in the league this season and the Cowboys with their 30th ranked rushing defense won’t like trying to stop Hubbard. It has been a career year for Hubbard, who most thought would have been phased out of the offense. He’s just too good to keep off the field and will be tough to slow down in Week 15. Bryce Young’s resurgence Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports It didn’t start off as a banner year for the first overall pick in the 2023 draft, but the young signal caller has been playing much better since the Panthers inserted him back into the starting lineup. In the first four weeks, Young averaged less than 75 yards passing per game, and hadn’t thrown for a touchdown. Just two weeks into the season and the Panthers made the decision to bench Young for veteran QB Andy Dalton, who immediately guided the team to a win. Dalton kept the job from Young for five weeks, during which the second-year QB watched and learned. Since he’s been back, Young has transformed his game. Young’s now passing for over 212 ypg and thrown all seven of his touchdowns. Young’s completion percentage has also risen and he’s cutdown on his interceptions, throwing just one in his last four weeks. The processing and play making that made Young the first pick overall is starting to manifest as the QB is looking more comfortable. Young’s a good prospect who needed some time to develop, and he looks like a different QB from earlier in the season. Many thought the benching of Young wasn’t the right move, but his resurgence is proving the Panthers made the correct call. The Cowboys will hate facing a QB who’s playing his best football and giving his team a chance to win games. Read all the best Cowboys coverage at the Austin American-Statesman and Cowboys Wire.

CeeDee Lamb 27 yards away from joining exclusive Cowboys club Todd Brock At just 5-8 and on the brink of official elimination from playoff contention, there wouldn’t seem to be much left for the Cowboys to play for. But there is one star player who will have a noteworthy accomplishment well within his grasp when the team lines up to face Carolina in Week 15. CeeDee Lamb needs just 27 receiving yards to post his fourth straight 1,000-yard season. While some will argue that the 1,000-yard milestone doesn’t mean what it used to since the inception of the 17-game schedule (28 pass-catchers did it in 2023), it’s still a benchmark achievement. And how rare is doing it four times in a row? Assuming Lamb hits 1K, he’ll become just the second Cowboy in franchise history to surpass 1,000 receiving yards in four consecutive campaigns. Only Michael Irvin has pulled off that particular feat, topping the millennium mark five times in a row, every season from 1991 to 1995. In fact, as hard as it may be to believe, Irvin and Jason Witten are the only Cowboys players with four or more 1,000-receiving-yard seasons at all in their careers. Dez Bryant didn’t do it. Drew Pearson didn’t do it. Not Tony Hill, Bob Hayes, or Frank Clarke. After 64 years of Cowboys football, Lamb will be just the third member of that exclusive club. [affiliatewidget_smgtolocal] He does still need to gain those 27 yards, but in the 79 regular-season games Lamb has played in since joining the team, he’s failed to hit that number just six times. The three-time Pro Bowler suffered a shoulder injury in Week 9 but has nevertheless played through it and even leads the league in targets, so mathematically speaking (and knock on wood; he’s been limited in practice this week) it’s just a matter of how soon it happens on Sunday. “Trying to play as hard as I can, I’m obviously putting myself out there for the benefit of the team,” Lamb said this week. “And of course, myself, I love to compete, but it’s bigger than me.” Officials certainly won’t stop the game on Sunday to recognize Lamb’s 1,000-yard season. The moment may not even warrant a mention from the broadcast booth. Yes, Lamb’s 27th receiving yard this weekend will put him in elite company within the Cowboys record books, but he’d be the first to say that adding to the left-hand column of the team’s 2024 win-loss record is the more important contribution anyway. “Be able to win the game, regardless, at the end of the day, you’ve still got to win the game,” he explained, “That’s the motivation.” Read all the best Cowboys coverage at the Austin American-Statesman and Cowboys Wire.