By Mark Halpern
Saturday the Cowboys faced off against the Houston Texans, and the result was another loss with a score of 20-14. There were some pleasant upsides to this loss, especially in the Quarterback battle. Yet again, the Cowboys didn’t have many first-string offensive players play long but, that is no excuse.
Over the first three preseason games, the Cowboys played Garrett Gilbert as the starter, and Ben DeNucci and Cooper Rush were second and third. Gilbert came out and looked like a rookie completing 3/5 for 3 yards and a fumble. Cooper Rush came in and performed brilliantly. We heard the crowd give a “COOOOOP” chant, but it wasn’t for Amri Cooper, but Cooper Rush came out and was fire. Rush completed 1/12 passes for yards and two touchdowns. He finally turned things over to Ben DeNucci, and he, in my opinion, will be cut when the next cut down happens. DeNucci came in and completed 14/19 passes for a 120 yard but three costly interceptions. As of now, the competition is between Gilbert and Rush. The offensive line also gave up five sacks, and the quarterbacks were heavily pressured, so that didn’t help much.
As for the starters, Amari Cooper did play but only for about two drives and had one rush for -4 yards. Cee Dee Lamb caught his only target for 13 yards, and then there was an excellent showing from Tony Pollard, who caught one of the touchdowns by Rush for six yards and rushed for another 20 yards. Noah Brown had an excellent showing of 3 receptions for 35 yards in the second half.
On the defensive side of the ball, the Cowboys seemed off. They only recorded one sack when they were getting 4-5 per game in the other games. There wasn’t one defensive player that stood out amongst the others. The Cowboy’s defense didn’t record a turnover for the first time this preseason while the offensive gave up 3.
Over the past week, the Cowboys have linked to trade rumors with the Chicago bears for Nick Foles. The Cowboys see that they are in trouble for the second QB position, with Justin Fields probably going to win the starter position that will leave the Bears with Dalton and Foles. Dalton was with the Cowboys last year and had a below mediocre season. You would think he would adjust well but, he has lost a step over the last few years, and the Cowboys could get Foles and possibly sign him to an extension to seal a weak part of their depth chart.
Next week the Cowboys will face the Jaguars, and I expect most of the first-string players get a quarter or more except for Dak Prescott. The media was told by head coach McCarthy that Prescott won’t play in the preseason to work back to full strength. According to the Dallas coaching staff, Dak is on track to start week one against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sept 9th. Most of the first-stringers will play on the Defensive side except for Demarcus Lawrence and Malik Hooker as they are getting ready for Week 1.
Even though the Cowboys Lost this week and there were some bright sides, the Coaches now must come together and make cuts this week. I expect DeNucci to be one of those and then possibly signed over to the practice squad.
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