The Dallas Cowboys had an awful performance on the defensive side of the ball in Week 1, but a new week brings new hope and Dallas is hoping its defense will be better in Week 2 against the Washington Commanders.
But hope isn’t enough to get it done. The Cowboys need to both play better and make some adjustments to what they did last week because it simply didn’t work.
It’s up to defensive coordinator Christian Parker to enact changes, and we have three suggestions for him ahead of Sunday.
More Von Miller
It’s cool that Miller is a Hall of Fame teammate and can help the young guys, but the Cowboys also need him on the field to actually rush the passer.
Miller played sparingly in Week 1, with the future Hall of Famer seeing the field for 11 snaps, which amounted to 16% of the Cowboys’ plays on defense.
Compare that to last season, when he was on the field for 37% of the snaps for the Commanders, or an average of 24.7 per game.
With Malachi Lawrence having a tough time in Week 1 on his 30 snaps, and with the Cowboys having a rough time getting after the quarterback overall, it makes sense to get Miller on the field more, assuming he’s capable of doing so.
Rotate Revel and Bland, not Durant and Revel
DaRon Bland had struggles in Week 1 and wound up playing every snap for Dallas. Meanwhile, Cobie Durant thrived, yet he rotated snaps with Shavon Revel, who was only OK. Durant ended up playing 50 snaps and Revel saw 20.
After what we saw last week with the pass defense in general, the Cowboys need to keep their best corner, which is Durant, on the field as much as possible.
Let Revel and Bland switch off plays instead, and we’d like to see a more even split with Revel and Bland than we saw with Durant and Revel last Sunday.
Mix up coverages
The Cowboys were getting torched in soft zone against the Giants last week, yet Parker kept banging his head against the wall throughout the contest and didn’t change things.
According to Sharp Football Analysis, the Cowboys played zone at a rate of 72.1%.
We want to see Parker mix coverages a lot more. At the very least, if he’s going to lean heavily into one type of coverage, switch things up if it isn’t working. You know, adjust.
Seeing as how he has historically been better in man coverage, it would help Bland if Dallas plays more of that type. If the Cowboys are going to play zone, stop giving so much cushion to receivers off the line of scrimmage since that clearly didn’t work in Week 1.
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