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Dallas Cowboys 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly': What Did We Learn vs. Niners?

Dallas Cowboys 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly': What Did We Learn vs. Niners?

Harrison Reno

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The Dallas Cowboys were dismantled 42-10 by the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, suffering their worst loss in the history of the rivalry between the two franchises. 

So, like we have following wins this season for the Cowboys, we empty our notebook on the good and the bad from Sunday. 

The Good

KaVontae Turpin

On the surface, it seems hard to find any positive takeaways from the blowout loss for the Cowboys; however, even when Dallas was on the other side of a routing earlier this season, we still found the bad. 

The lone touchdown for the Cowboys on Sunday came via an unlikely source, in KaVontae Turpin. After mainly serving as the returner for the Cowboys under former coordinator Kellen Moore, Mike McCarthy has found ways to get him on the field when Dallas has possession. 

In recent weeks, Turpin has been used on jet sweeps and screens as they tried to get him the ball in space, yet on Sunday, they used his game-changing speed downfield. 

The play design called for Turpin to motion across the formation before running a fade route out of the slot, where Prescott would hit him in stride for the 26-yard touchdown.

It was the play the Cowboys needed a lot more of to flip the score against the Niners and something they should certainly keep in mind going forward.

Unfortunately, later in the game, Turpin was injured and is now expected to be out for six weeks. So even the "good'' didn't turn out well enough.

Jake Ferguson 

Since suffering multiple dropped passes in the season-opening win over the New York Giants, the third-year tight end out of Wisconsin has made a case to be the outright No. 1 option at his position. Ferguson came out of college known for his blocking and has since developed into a reliable pass-catcher for the Cowboys.

Not only has Ferguson had just one drop since Week 1, but he has also shown his play-making, gaining 101 yards after the catch, which ranks eighth-best among all tight ends. 

Ferguson finished third on the team behind CeeDee Lamb and Tony Pollard in receiving with just three catches for 28 yards.

The Bad

Play-calling

Despite the common rhetoric on social media following the Cowboys' loss, there wasn't just one problem that saw Dallas lose 42-10. Sunday featured many bad performances for many of the Cowboys' best players. However, it is also true that from a play-calling perspective on offense, it seemed like the Cowboys under Mike McCarthy got away from who they were. 

After an offseason where the Cowboys sold the "Texas Coast Offense" as one where they'd be playing complementary football, meaning they would emphasize the importance of time of possession and limiting turnovers to help their defense, Dallas seemed to abandon that identity against the Niners.

The Cowboys ran the ball once in their first two drives, ending with punts after a three-and-out. The lack of a balanced attack wasn't the only part of the Cowboys' game plan that could have holes poked into, as they seemingly got away from timing and rhythm offense that saw them get off to a 3-1 start to the season.

After weeks of Prescott getting the ball out in less than 2.5 seconds on average, his time to throw versus the Niners jumped to 2.75 seconds, the slowest rate of the season for him.

Execution

Oct 8, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) stands on the sideline during the fourth quarter against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium / Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

As many have called out after watching the game tape from the Cowboys, specifically former Super Bowl-winning quarterback Kurt Warner, some of the problems in the passing game come down to the details. 

In a video released to Twitter Tuesday, Warner points out two plays where the Cowboys were running a common passing concept in the West Coast offense: double slants. However, the way the plays were executed was unconventional, to say the least.

For one, the Cowboys were running the concept to the short side of the field, which took away the needed space to operate within. 

Additionally, the routes themselves weren't run at the proper depth, making the job of Prescott even harder and, in the final example, near impossible as the poor route running helped Niners linebacker Oren Burks intercept his pass.

The Ugly

Cowboys Defense vs. Motion

Pre-snap motion has quickly become a staple of NFL offenses, especially in a lot of the West Coast offense utilized and now evolved by Niners coach Kyle Shanahan and Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay. Not only is a motion being used to give quarterbacks potential keys into what the defense is doing, but it is also being used to help set up plays. 

The Niners used both against the Cowboys, but the latter gave the defense trouble. Shanahan often had plays where he'd bring people in motion from the right side of the formation to the left before quarterback Brock Purdy would snap the ball and hand the ball off to the left. 

Shanahan and the Niners would even use that same bit of "eye candy" to open up things through the air. The Niners' offense manipulated the Cowboys' defense like a puppet through these uses of motion. 

This isn't "gimmicky.'' This is football. And the Cowboys' inability to diagnose it? This is ugly.

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Harrison Reno
HARRISON RENO

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