Yahoo Sports NFL analyst Nate Tice, fantasy analyst Matt Harmon, and NFL writer Charles McDonald discuss the Cowboys’ defensive woes and why they’ve fallen short of expectations. Hear the full conversation on “Football 301” – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
Most disappointing defense.
I mean, I have an easy one but I only hear yours.
I would, I don’t know if it’s juicy because it’s kind of obvious because they’re a pathetic defense.
But when you look at like the bottom five defenses in terms of EPA per play, it’s Jacksonville, like, ok, I can see that like who, who, who’s playing, even if people like Ryan Nielsen, who’s playing on the back end for them.
Well, yeah, nobody does anymore.
But I in my short list of props of praising, uh the Panthers are, the Panthers are down there.
That one’s obvious they don’t have any good players and then they lost their best player in week one.
The Bucks even if people respect Todd Bowles.
Um, you know, they have issues in the back end and they’ve always been pretty, they’re pretty bland and vanilla at this point.
Like veteran quarterbacks in Redmond Park, Bengals, none of their recent defensive draft picks have really hit.
So like all those are, I could, I could have seen that coming into the year.
The one that’s really surprised me is Dallas is down there too and that’s my biggest disappointment.
Because, I mean, it’s, their defense is humiliating.
I mean, and their offense is probably trying to catch up now at this point because they’re, you know, they’re playing Trey Lance who looks like he doesn’t even know how to play football.
Uh, you know, they’re down to like the deep reserves at wide receiver, you know, throwing real passes to Cavan Turpin, you know, in the NFL, in this stage, not what you want.
Their offense is trying to catch up, but all year long that defense has been rough and I, I thought that Mike Zimmer higher was interesting and then lost interest in it probably about 30 seconds into the season.
It’s just this, they have a lot of the same like, I mean, Al Harris is the defensive backs coach for a minute there now and he, he’s not new this year and the defensive backs look like what are they coached to do?
You know, it’s just, and I think a lot of it is the change in systems, of course, and I just, none of it is really trickled down.
The, the secondary is a mess.
The pass rush obviously has dealt with injuries.
Parsons hasn’t been there and they’re just hopeless stopping the run.
So, yeah, I think Dallas has to be, uh in terms of de de defensive disappointments and number one on the list for me.