NFL Analysis
12/17/23
8 min read
Dallas Cowboys' Super Bowl Hopes Could Be Doomed by One Fatal Flaw
Sunday's afternoon slate asked the eternal question for any team flirting with greatness: Can it do it on a cold rainy night in Buffalo?
For the Dallas Cowboys, the answer was no. Emphatically no.
Nothing went right for the Cowboys on Sunday, but the crux of it all was that the Buffalo Bills demolished them in the run game in the cold, wet conditions. QB Josh Allen finished with 94 yards passing, but it didn't matter because the Bills ran the ball 49 times for 266 yards and three scores. James Cook handled 25 carries for 179 yards by himself, both career-highs for him.
The Bills were running the ball so well that, at a certain point, they stopped seriously entertaining the idea of passing altogether, which is absurd with a force such as Allen at quarterback.
In no uncertain terms, Buffalo's run game carried the team, literally, to a resounding 31-10 win over a Cowboys team aspiring to win the NFC.
While this was comfortably the Cowboys' worst game of run defense all season, it was not the first time Dallas got mashed up and down the field. Far from it.
Defending the run has been a problem for the Cowboys all season long. Whenever they have faced an opponent with teeth in the run game, they have gotten abused and have allowed efficient gain after efficient gain — to the point where it's often lost them games.
Dallas' five worst games of run defense this season by success rate have come against the Bills, San Francisco 49ers, Arizona Cardinals, Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles (Week 14). The four non-Cardinals teams make up the four best rushing offenses in the NFL by success rate, and Arizona isn't too shabby at 11th. The Cowboys only won two of those games, and one came in Week 8 against a Rams team that is much scarier now than it was at the time.
Win or lose, Dallas couldn't hold any of those teams to a below-average rushing success rate on the day. Obviously, that's a brutal task against those teams, but if the Cowboys' run defense had anything to it at all, it would have been able to hold down the fort at least once in those games.
While those five games certainly pull down Dallas' numbers on the season, it's not like the Cowboys have been very good against most other teams, either. The Cowboys rank 31st in defensive rushing success rate on the season at 57.6 percent, per TruMedia. Only the Denver Broncos have been worse. Dallas has had good weeks here and there — such as Week 6 against the Los Angeles Chargers and Week 2 against the New York Jets — but they have mostly been on the losing end of the run game battle on defense.
Where is the Problem?
Investigating how and why the Cowboys' run defense is so bad is where it gets interesting. It's one thing to say a run defense stinks, but that can manifest in many ways. Sometimes, it's a lack of talent; other times, it's a matter of schematic identity.
For example, the Cardinals and Broncos are some of the worst run defenses in the league because they don't have the dudes up front. Conversely, Brandon Staley's Chargers struggled with run defense in large part because the scheme was designed to play with light boxes and to lean into shutting down the passing game. That was a conscious decision built into the philosophy of the defense, one that can only be overcome when you have someone like Aaron Donald changing the math up front.
In the case of the Cowboys, their issues are sort of both. Dallas' defense is built to get after the passer and play a ton of man coverage. The unit has a lot of defensive linemen who just want to explode off the ball, especially along the interior, and lighter personnel in the back seven. That's become even more true since LB Leighton Vander Esch went out for the season and was replaced by 205-pound Markquese Bell.
The scheme dictates the personnel, and the personnel isn't geared to defend the run at a high level unless they generate tackles for loss. A year ago, the Cowboys did that. Their 65 tackles for loss in the run game, per TruMedia, tied for second-most in the league. This season, Dallas only has 35 tackles for loss against the run, 23rd in the league.
So without the tackles for loss setting offenses behind the sticks, Dallas' formula leads to getting bullied in the trenches. Defensive linemen do not hold their ground consistently, and linebackers regularly get picked off by guards at the second level. They just don't have the bulk or physicality necessary to survive car crashes in the run game for 60 minutes.
In turn, the Cowboys get abused the most by giving up ground before contact. They rank 28th in yards allowed per contact this season. Many runs are most of the way there to being efficient gains for the offense before a Dallas defender even gets a hand on the running back.
To the Cowboys' credit, they don't allow many explosive runs. Only 5.45 percent of runs against the defense go for at least 12 yards, good for 11th-best in the league. It's the run defense unit's only saving grace.
How Scheme Affects the Cowboys' Defense
The Cowboys knows they have light bodies and know they're going to get bullied, so they constantly load the box with bodies and try to get a hat on a hat. All those bodies and pass-oriented players still get moved off their spot, but there is enough of them that someone takes the runner down before disaster strikes (Bills game notwithstanding).
In an ideal world, this would be the part of the column where I tell you how the Cowboys can solve their woes and turn things around for the playoffs, but we don't live in that world. The reality is that Dallas' primary personnel and schematic identity aren't changing. The Cowboys will continue to be a single-high defense hellbent on attacking up the field and locking it down in the passing game with light bodies in man coverage. It's what Dan Quinn's defenses have always been, and it's what this roster has been shaped to do.
Even getting DT Johnathan Hankins, who missed this week's game with an ankle sprain, back soon isn't likely to change anything. Hankins' absence absolutely made Buffalo's beatdown worse than it could have been otherwise, but he has played every other game for the Cowboys this season, and they have still been a subpar run defense. He isn't going to be the magical run defense fairy the team needs.
All of that is scary in a vacuum, but it's made worse after looking at the NFC playoff picture. A majority of the teams who will get into the dance can run the hell out of the football.
The aforementioned 49ers will get the top seed, and the Eagles will get into the postseason one way or another, be it as division winners or the top wild-card spot. The Detroit Lions are also near locks to make the playoffs. And although not as certain to make it in, the Rams are playing at a level that should squeak them in.
Dallas has already gotten bludgeoned by three of those teams on the ground, and you know Dan Campbell and his boys in Detroit would just be champing at the bit to do the same. Maybe the Cowboys could be fortunate enough to play the NFC South winner in the first round, seeing as how none of those teams have particularly overwhelming rushing attacks at the moment. Still, Dallas will run into these other rushing juggernauts at some point if it wants to make the Super Bowl.
>>READ: Updated NFL Playoff Bracket After Week 15
Given that Dak Prescott has played at an MVP level for most of the season and that the Cowboys' pass defense can still take over games, it's not like the Cowboys are cooked completely. Even if their run defense fails them, they still have avenues to win games.
Pushing through an NFC gauntlet of teams who can pound the rock will be a major obstacle. The Cowboys haven't really been able to stop any of these top rushing teams yet, and it's hard to make the case about why they would be able to when it matters most.
