Dallas City News

Cowboys’ Dalvin Cook is ‘ready,’ will make Dallas debut against 49ers in Week 8, per report – Garrett Podell, CBS Sports

The former Pro Bowl running back will suit up for the game against the 49ers.

The Dallas Cowboys (3-3) are ready to try something new in Week 8 to help juice the NFL’s worst rushing offense. The team plans to elevate four-time Pro Bowl running back Dalvin Cook off the practice squad, setting the stage for his debut, according to ESPN.

Their 77.2 rushing yards per game rank dead last in the NFL and stand as Dallas’ worst per game average through its first six games since 1989. That was the Cowboys’ first season with Jerry Jones as team owner and general manager, and the first season of Pro Football Hall of Famer Troy Aikman’s career. Dallas went 1-15 that year.

“I think the biggest thing for us is we’re taking the full week. Dalvin is ready [to play],” Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said on a conference call Friday. “I really like the work that he’s putting in. I think he’s clearly crossed over the threshold of the communication and the understanding [of the offense].”

Cook, 29, missed all of training camp and worked out in Houston with trainers near his offseason residence before signing with Dallas on Aug. 29. The final threshold McCarthy alluded to is Cook being fully up to speed with his scheme’s nonverbal communication at the line of scrimmage. During the week, The Athletic reports that Cook even took first-team reps.

Cook made the Pro Bowl in four of the past five years, rushing for at least 1,135 yards in each of those four campaigns from 2019 to 2022. That streak came to an end in 2023 after playing in 15 games with the New York Jets, but he amassed only 214 rushing yards on 67 carries (3.2 yards per carry, a career low) behind a banged-up offensive line while taking handoffs from a rotation of quarterbacks who weren’t Aaron Rodgers.

NFL 2024 Trade Deadline: Which position acquisition would aid Cowboys mission? – Reid Hanson, Cowboys Wire

Assuming the Cowboys were players on the trade market, what position would help them most to improve their roster?

Defensive tackle

The Cowboys are shallower at DT than they are at any other spot on their roster. They committed fully to second-year player Mazi Smith and the move has not paid off for them.

Smith, while improved in Year 2, still has a long way to go before he can be considered a starting quality player. The hope is he can still develop but adding a player at the deadline wouldn’t be stunting Smith’s development, it would be getting Smith out of as role he’s ill-suited for.

Options don’t appear to be rich in the trade market so the price might be high. Ideally the Cowboys would find someone to pair with Osa Odighizuwa since he’s generally thought of as the top DT on the team.

Receiver

The Cowboys WR position has fallen under major scrutiny this past week when Hall of Famer Troy Aikman called Dallas out for their poor WR play. Finding an option to play behind CeeDee Lamb would be the clear and obvious goal since Brandin Cooks is on IR for the foreseeable future.

The Cowboys don’t have any clear and obvious talents developing on the roster so adding a veteran at the deadline wouldn’t be blocking anyone. Jalen Tolbert, the current WR2 in Dallas, is better suited for No. 3 role anyway, so it might even help him this season.

Cowboys Week 8 strategy must replicate the 49ers style – Mark Heaney, Inside the Star

To beat the 49ers, Dallas must utilize these players.

Hunter Luepke’s Expanding Role

Since 2017, one of the key aspects of Kyle Shanahan’s offense has been his All-Pro fullback, Kyle Juszczyk. Acting as a true Swiss Army knife, Juszczyk truly does it all for the 49ers offense. Everything from blocking to rushing to receiving, Juszczyk is always all over the field for San Francisco.

His versatility makes it difficult on defenses to prepare for what’s coming, as he could literally be asked to do just about anything when he steps onto the field. Enter Hunter Luepke, the Cowboys Week 8 secret weapon.

The second-year fullback out of North Dakota State has been acting as a Juszczyk-lite kind of player in McCarthy’s offense.

We have seen him block, we have seen his rushing prowess expand, he has caught more passes than Ezekiel Elliott, Jalen Brooks, and Deuce Vaugh, and his 91 receiving yards on the year matches Brandin Cooks’ total exactly. Few could have predicted that coming into the season, and this expanding versatility has to grow even more against the 49ers.

Despite Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Jake Ferguson’s presence, it is no secret that the Cowboys’ offense has slumped. They are not that creative, they don’t use motion enough, and they lack the deception and explosiveness of other teams. If the Cowboys can find a consistent place for Luepke in the offense this week, this dry offense may be able to spark some new life against a tough San Francisco defense.

Dallas Cowboys scouting report: Breaking down the 49ers offensive scheme-David Howman, Blogging the Boys

Here’s an assessment of the 49ers’ offense and why they aren’t entirely up to snuff this season.

Zimmer will get a chance to face the master himself, as the Cowboys travel to San Francisco for their fifth matchup with the 49ers in as many seasons. And for the first time in a long time, Kyle Shanahan’s offense doesn’t look like a defensive coordinator’s nightmare.

In fairness, that’s mostly due to injuries hitting all over this unit. Christian McCaffrey has yet to suit up this season, and the anticipation is he won’t return until after the 49ers’ bye next week. His backup, Elijah Mitchell, was placed on injured reserve during the preseason, which has meant third-string running back Jordan Mason has been the bell-cow for this run-heavy offense.

Shanahan’s scheme is built around the outside zone run, which aims to neutralize the litany of edge rushers around this league by running right at them instead of letting them do what they do best. The 49ers are calling 67.9% of their runs outside the tackles; only two teams have a higher rate of outside runs, and it’s the aforementioned Kubiak in New Orleans and Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson, who hails from the Sean McVay tree, itself a branch of the Shanahan tree.

Mason has held up well, too. San Francisco ranks 11th in EPA/rush and sixth in rush DVOA, and Mason leads the league in both yards after contact and runs of 10+ yards while placing just behind Derrick Henry in total rushing yards. However, Mason ranks just 22nd among running backs in rush success rate; combined with his explosion stats, this indicates that Mason has some boom-or-bust traits to his performance so far this season.

The Shanahan offense is built on the run game precisely because of how much it opens things up for the passing game. However, injuries to their star pass catchers have complicated matters quite a bit there. Just last week, Brandon Aiyuk suffered a torn ACL and is out for the rest of the year. Deebo Samuel was hospitalized following last week’s game due to pneumonia. And George Kittle, who missed a game earlier this year with a hamstring injury, has been limited in practice with a sprained foot.

The one who’s struggled the most from all of this is Brock Purdy. While the former Mr. Irrelevant hasn’t been a complete disaster, he’s had a down season by his standards. As it stands right now, both his QBR and EPA/dropback would easily be career lows and he’s thrown the second-most interceptions in the NFL.

Worst of all is the fact that Purdy has become more hesitant in the passing game than ever before. His 3.10 seconds per throw leads the league and is a massive uptick for him, simultaneously leading to the highest pressure rate he’s seen in his young career. Per Pro Football Focus, Purdy’s long time to throw has made him responsible for 24.7% of his pressures this year, the third-highest among full time starters. To make matters worse, Purdy has been worse than ever when under pressure: his completion rate drops from 68.7% to 53.6% and his passer rating drops from 96.2 to 80.5, all significant dropoffs.