The Dallas Cowboys have been the most dominant team in the NFL through the first two weeks of the season. After dismantling the New York Giants in Week 1 on Sunday Night Football 40-0, they dominated their MetLife Stadium co-tenants, the New York Jets, in Week 2.
The game was competitive in the first half, but the Cowboys’ relentless pressure defensively rushing Zach Wilson eventually led to a blowout. Dallas won the game 30-10, as kicker Brandon Aubrey had himself a day, going 5-for-5 on field goal attempts.
The only blemish on the Dallas defense was a 68-yard catch and run by Garrett Wilson when he took a slant pass for a touchdown. While the defense has been the talk of the town, Jerry Jones actually believes it is the offense that is responsible for the team’s hot start. More specifically, head coach Mike McCarthy.
McCarthy took over offensive play-calling duties this offseason as the Cowboys moved on from Kellen Moore, who was their offensive coordinator for four seasons before joining the Los Angeles Chargers this offseason. Jones believes that McCarthy deserves a lot of credit for the 2-0 start.
“Just off hand, I do not,” Jones said. “I liked the way Mike [McCarthy] was very visible today, his approach to how we’re going to be offensively. All the way around. He had this charted out, . . . what he wanted to do. Now, you’ve got to execute. But I can’t say enough about Mike McCarthy here. Y’all give him his due here. He’s got a lot to do with how these two games have come out.” (H/T ProFootballTalk)
A lot of this has been the product of the game script, but the biggest positive for the Cowboys offensively has been Dak Prescott having zero interceptions through two games. The team has been able to rely heavily on their running game, milking the clock in two blowout victories.
Things will certainly get tougher for Dallas, as the Giants and Jets both have bottom-of-the-barrel offensive line production. That enabled the Cowboys’ defense to find a ton of success rushing the passer and take a lot of pressure off of the offense. But, Jones loves how things have looked thus far.
“I am guarded, because . . . you know that you can have this thing turn on you,” Jones said. “But I fundamentally like where we are. We were able to get through our training camp. We didn’t play the starters [in the postseason]. Now then we’ve got two games under our belt. The [young players] have played a lot of reps. That’s good. We look to be, knock on wood, in pretty good shape relative to our injuries as we go into the third game. I’ll take it.”
The Cowboys have been dominant in their first two games of the season, announcing their presence as a team to pay attention to. They have a chance to pad their record with games against the Arizona Cardinals and New England Patriots the next two weeks before facing off against the San Francisco 49ers.
