Dallas City News

The Dallas Cowboys completed their final road game of the preseason on Saturday night in Las Vegas, beating the Raiders 27-12 behind a Trey Lance touchdown pass to rookie Ryan Flournoy, a Kemon Hall interception return for a touchdown to start the fourth quarter, and a late rushing score by Lance to put the game away. All that stands between the Cowboys and the regular season now is a return to Texas and the conclusion of training camp and the preseason, which will culminate with a home game from AT&T Stadium against the Los Angeles Chargers next Saturday.

After failing to score an offensive touchdown despite forcing four turnovers in last week’s game against the Rams, the Cowboys offense called by Mike McCarthy, and mostly led by Lance at QB, was under the microscope all night. The defense more than did it’s job getting the ball back in the hands of the Cowboys’ offense and scoring themselves on their fifth interception of the preseason. Holding the Raiders to 7-of-17 on third-down attempts and 1-of-4 on fourth downs, Mike Zimmer’s defense continues to show up gameday ready with depth players capable of making plays worthy of serious roster considerations.

Using a still severely underpowered Dallas offense missing starting QB Dak Prescott, WRs CeeDee Lamb and Brandin Cooks, OL Tyler Smith, Zack Martin, Terence Steele, and other key starters, the Cowboys still put together a team effort they can feel good about logging their first (unofficial) win of the season.

Here are a few notes from this meeting between the Cowboys and Raiders.

Photo by Ian Maule/Getty Images

• The ability to mix and match personnel at safety is proving to be one of the biggest strengths for this Cowboys defense right now. With a cast of players at safety that mostly all played under previous DC Dan Quinn, the change in scheme has not slowed down the ability for the entire second and third levels of this defense to read their keys, play fast, and finish on the ball.

On the Raiders’ opening possession, Zamir White broke a run into the secondary for 17 yards before being tackled in the open field by Markquese Bell. On the very next play, Bell was aligned in the box and blitzed QB Gardner Minshew, who threw a pass broken up by Juanyeh Thomas. This put Vegas behind the chains and into obvious pass situations, which is exactly where Zimmer and this Cowboys secondary wants opposing offenses to be. Going for it on fourth and three near midfield, another safety in Israel Mukuamu had the coverage out of the slot on Jacoby Myers and forced an incompletion for a turnover on downs.

The Cowboys’ own offensive players have raved about how well this defense is disguising coverages and blitzes in camp so far, but the fact they are off to such a fast start executing these looks at game speed no matter who is in the lineup is impressive. The early returns on the combo of Zimmer and secondary coach/assistant HC Al Harris could not be better.

• One of the newest additions to the Cowboys roster making his team debut on Saturday was cornerback Andrew Booth, acquired in a trade swap with the Vikings for Nahshon Wright. Booth was picked on in single man coverage a few times, but hardly looked out of place and did a nice job coming downhill to make tackles in space. Booth’s size and square, lanky frame are great tools for the Cowboys to have in a defense that isn’t afraid to load the field with bigger defensive backs and still feel they can defend the run – something Booth showed the ability to do with a team high seven tackles.

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• There may be a new leader in the clubhouse for the Cowboys starting center position. Rookie Cooper Beebe got the start with Cooper Rush in at QB, and returned to action at the start of the second half with Lance in the game. The best thing to say about Beebe’s performance is he was mostly unnoticed, as the Cowboys did not allow a sack and gave their stable of running backs plenty of opportunities to rush up the middle. When Beebe gets out in space and is able to keep his balance, his upside as a run blocker has become impossible for the Cowboys staff to ignore, giving him first team reps in Oxnard ever since the Rams game. Beebe and Hoffman will continue to split time here it seems, and both are virtual locks to make the Cowboys final roster, but it feels like momentum is now pointing towards two of the Cowboys top three draft picks starting Week 1 on the offensive line.

As for the focus on the interior run game, it was interesting to see McCarthy use Deuce Vaughn in this way. Without Rico Dowdle or Ezekiel Elliott, Malik Davis carried five times, and Royce Freeman was also utilized, but Vaughn did a good job fighting for tough yards in the center of the line. He combined his footwork and ability to hide behind his line to punch out some tough yards. Vaughn had five carries for 34 yards.

• It was good to see sixth-round pick WR Ryan Flournoy score the first touchdown of the preseason for the Cowboys, doing so on a route that suits him with a back of the endzone fade. The Cowboys tried to establish the fade to multiple receivers against the Rams but could not get the timing down. McCarthy did a better job in this game giving Lance manageable passing situations thanks to calling on his rushing ability to get him comfortable, and it was a Lance four-yard scramble on third down in the red zone that extended the drive for Flournoy to cap it off two plays later. On a night where other receivers struggled to stand out and Jalen Moreno-Cropper committed a turnover on a punt return fumble, Flournoy’s stock is rising as a player that can immediately help this team in the scoring area when defenses are hyper-focused on the likes of Lamb or TE Jake Ferguson.

This team needs a Michael Gallup replacement, and may have just found one worthy of developing with real game reps throughout the season in Flournoy.

• If there was a negative for the Cowboys defense coming out of their first preseason game, other than giving up the game winning touchdown late in the fourth, it was a noticeable lack of pass rush. While this did make their performance on the backend stand out even more, the Cowboys will need more than just Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence (both absent in both preseason contests so far) to pressure quarterbacks, and had a hard time finding where these rushes may come from against the Rams. Things looked a little better against the Raiders here, as training camp FA addition Al Quadin-Muhammad came off the edge with a third down pressure that ended the Raiders last drive of the first half.

Quadin-Muhammad is not an every down defensive end at this point, but his ability to get upfield and dip underneath blockers to angle back to the quarterback is a skill the Cowboys need right now, and he showed it in flashes against the Raiders. Getting the ball back for the Cowboys offense just before halftime proved important, as Brandon Aubrey drilled a career-long 66-yard field goal to go into the locker room with Dallas ahead 13-6.

Photo by Ian Maule/Getty Images

• For the second week in a row, a player that has flown almost entirely under the radar at training camp made one of the biggest plays in the game. Cornerback Kemon Hall jumped a short pass from Aidan O’Connell on the first play of the fourth quarter for an interception, returning it for a touchdown. Hall joins Markquese Bell, Eric Scott Jr., Brock Mogenson, and Julius Wood as players to come away with interceptions in the preseason so far for the Cowboys, highlighting two positions in CB and LB that had concerns about depth before camp. Now, Dallas is showing they have plenty of surprise players ready to make all three levels of this defense a force, with Darius Harris and Damien Wilson also flashing at linebacker against Las Vegas.

This is a good sign for a defense that is doing all of this without Trevon Diggs, DaRon Bland, Jourdan Lewis, Micah Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence, Osa Odighizuwa, and also without DT Mazi Smith on Saturday.

• For viewers anywhere but the West Coast, it’s no secret that this game ran late into the night and fans would certainly be forgiven for not being tuned into every snap as both teams worked players further down the rosters. For those that stayed tuned in though, there was a moment late in the third quarter that should remind fans of both teams about one of the more hilarious moments to unfold in any NFL game in recent memory. The Raiders gained a first down by way of virtual measurement, a reminder that the giant orange sticks and chains needed to measure ten yards are becoming a thing of a past in the NFL now. While this is certainly a step forward for the overall accuracy of officiating, it was impossible to see these two teams on the field together having a dispute over a first down and not think of this Gene Steratore moment from Sunday NIght Football in week 15 of the 2017 season. Needing not only sticks, chains, but an index card to determine if the Cowboys converted a crucial first down, Dallas went on to win this game in memorable fashion as Jeff Heath knocked the ball out of Derek Carr’s hands at the goal line to prevent a would-be game winning touchdown and force a touchback that sealed the game.

Cowboys fans will forever be thankful for the now “old school” way of measuring things.