On those third downs and even the fourth down, when we needed to execute, I missed a throw, we dropped some passes and we weren’t clean. We didn’t throw and catch the way that we’ve done all season long. To say they did something that we weren’t expecting or we weren’t ready for… To say that they did something to stop us…They were more physical we didn’t execute, as I said. “I think it was the first time this year that we weren’t the more physical team. “They were more physical than us,” Prescott concluded. Pressure and coverage worked together perfectly. The Broncos have been a heavy man/match team all season (very Fangio), but I have not seen their defense play as physically as it did against the Cowboys. So, when Prescott was pressured and wanted to find his hot routes - slants, crossers, stuff in the flats - those were not easy openings. Most teams playing man against the Cowboys wouldn’t play tight, aggressive man all over the field on a down-to-down basis out of respect for Prescott and his targets, but the Broncos said to heck with it, and did just that. In just 62 attempts against man coverage, Prescott completed 39 passes for 599 yards, 415 air yards, eight touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 127.6. Their QBR allowed in man coverage of 77.5 ranked sixth in the NFL this season - not bad at all - but Prescott had been tearing man coverage to bits this season. Through Week 8, only the Dolphins had played more dropbacks in man coverage (122) than Denver’s 120, but the Broncos hadn’t been consistently shutdown with it - per Sports Info Solutions, they’d allowed 63 completions in those 120 attempts for 998 yards, six touchdowns, two interceptions, and two more dropped interceptions. You expect the Broncos to play tight to the formation, but you also expect them to be somewhat vulnerable with it. This played to type from a schematic perspective, but not from a results perspective. Let’s get into how (and why) it went that way. In any event, this was a shocking turn of events for both Dallas’ offense and Denver’s defense. Before that, we were all looking up the last time the Cowboys got shut out at home - it was September 15, 1991, when Dallas was blown out 24-0 by the Eagles of… Rich Kotite? The two touchdowns came late in the fourth quarter when the Broncos were already up, 30-0, and things had been well-decided. It’s the NFL, those guys get paid to do this and play at a high level and they came in here and were more prepared of this game. It wasn’t our best performance by any means, obviously our worst of the year. We didn’t throw and catch the ball as we normally do. We scored a couple of touchdowns there in late time, but never got going. Especially on offense, didn’t get it going. “We got thumped in every aspect of the game. “We got beat,” Prescott said after the game, when asked what happened. The Cowboys attempted four fourth-down conversions, and failed every time. Overall, Prescott finished his day with 19 completions in 39 attempts for 232 yards, two garbage-time touchdowns, and one interception. Per Pro Football Focus, the Broncos got some kind of pressure on 17 of Prescott’s 43 dropbacks, and while Prescott did pretty well against it (six completions in 13 attempts for 88 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions), he didn’t have any kind of consistent answer for Denver’s complex, plastering, suffocating coverages. And Prescott was pressured more than he found comfortable. When Prescott had time to find the open receiver, the receiver generally wasn’t open for long. Moreover, they tied pressure to coverage magnificently. They played their usual brands of man and match coverage, but they did so far more physically than they had all season, and they did so consistently. Denver’s defense, led by head coach Vic Fangio, performed masterfully against one of the NFL’s best offenses. As the Vikings ranked fourth in Defensive DVOA and third against the pass after that game, and the Broncos ranked 25th in Defensive DVOA overall after Week 8, and Dak was back, and Miller was gone… well, if this had been a Cowboys uprising, nobody would have been surprised. Dak Prescott was back from his calf injury, and even with Cooper Rush at quarterback in Week 8, Dallas embarrassed the Vikings in Week 8 in a 20-16 win as Rush completed 24 of 40 passes for 325 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception in his first NFL start. The same defense that was now without all-time pass-rusher Von Miller after Miller was traded to the Rams could have taken a nose dive in a “rebuilding” season and allowed the Cowboys to work them all over the field. If there was one defense primed for trouble in Week 9, it was the Denver Broncos’ defense.
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