On one hand of things, it feels like we can see the season’s finish line. It is December and the Cowboys are healthy and in the mood to do some playoff damage. All good!
On the other hand, we look at the schedule and notice there are six more opponents before any of that can happen. In other words, this team is mathematically about 65 percent of the way through the regular season campaign. If you have ever run a marathon or anything that requires some level of endurance and finishing through the toughest part of a struggle, you know that in many ways, the tough part has not arrived. Heck, even a round of golf should tell us that the 12th tee is no time to start counting your winnings or strokes.
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This, of course, is the mental grind of the season and the next challenge that the Cowboys fan base is surely eager to skip to the fun stuff. If any team wants to show 2021 that it won’t have the last laugh, it might be the Dallas Cowboys. And yet, they cannot exact their revenge on last season’s fate until January. And you cannot get to January’s tests until December is completed.
We haven’t even started it yet.
My first instinct in analyzing this team is to report that most of the biggest questions have been answered. The defense has hardly let up all season and looks tremendously problematic for most opponents. The offense has finally rounded into shape at a level where we can call them a heavyweight and since we know that almost every champion in every sport can claim a top 10 offense and defense to be the recipe to holding a trophy, I believe that puts the Cowboys squarely in the mix.
But, yeah, 12th tee.
Nobody needs to look so globally when you have not even played to the two-thirds mark. In other words, let’s keep chopping wood and stay focused on what is the next hurdle. And that is a team we thought was in the playoffs when the season began, but has pulled off one of the most bizarre seasons in recent NFL history. The Indianapolis Colts are all over the map and extremely frustrating to follow. They are one of many teams that we overestimated in August only to find they are not terribly frightening or scary as we enter December. They are playing out the string and will surely have yet another new QB situation for the sixth consecutive season in 2023. Not to mention that, but I submit we should expect even another coaching adjustment by then.
But this is now. Dallas has four of its next five against the AFC South. If you play them one at a time, that means there should be at least three wins available from that quartet, if not four. But, if you get ahead of your skis, you can find out that all of the hard work to get to this point can be given back quickly. It is a great test to see how Mike McCarthy — a head coach as equipped in this matter as most anyone in the league — gets his team to understand that the biggest battle it faces is the one right in front of them.
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Let’s follow that path by answering the five big questions about this week’s Sunday Night Football opponent, the 4-7-1 Colts.
1. Can the Cowboys continue to act like an offense with almost no weaknesses?
I don’t see why they can’t. They are doing what we have seen this balanced attack do for a very long time. Last season when the Cowboys were breaking production records, their biggest weakness was the inability to run the ball – especially in short-yardage situations. I think the evidence has shown that they have addressed it and are on a very strong path. Also, the overall quality of the offensive line seems to have survived any small hiccup because now even the perceived weak spots appear to be just fine.
Now, this Colts defense is not as special as we thought it might be — no Shaq Leonard for almost the entire season has definitely changed things because he is one of the best linebackers in the NFL — but let’s not sleep on them up front. DeForest Buckner and Grover Stewart are not going to make running the ball easy and the Colts have an edge presence that is formidable. In fact, I might call this Colts defensive line as good as anything Dallas has faced since Philadelphia in Week 6. So the Colts are a real strong opponent up front. This is a good place to see where they are.
But, overall, on the day before Odell Beckham Jr. comes and flirts again, we have every reason to believe this offense should be back at about a touchdown per quarter and 28 points per game. Let’s see how well that goes.
2. Can Jonathan Taylor play as small a role in this game as Saquon Barkley did?
I doubt it. I am not sure why Saquon Barkley was featured so little by the Giants. He might have been banged up a bit more than we knew, but Jonathan Taylor is everything about this offense that should be bothersome. With the three guys the Colts have up front who are all top 5-paid offensive linemen (LG Quenton Nelson, C Ryan Kelly, RT Braden Smith), they know what they can and cannot do on offense and there is no way Matt Ryan can currently handle dealing with passing situations very often. He is hearing footsteps in a big way, so look for the Colts to feed Taylor and his ability to make a lot of out very little is well noted. He will be a real challenge — expect plenty of him.
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3. How well can the Cowboys model fix its turnover problem?
I might be stretching the truth here, but I am not a fan of multiple giveaways in a game and two of the previous three games have had that (at Green Bay, vs. the Giants). The Cowboys also had carelessness against the Bears and Lions and have six giveaways in these four games. In fairness, they are still a plus-3 in that stretch and plus-5 for the season. The only team with dominating turnover numbers this year is Philadelphia at plus-13 and the Colts are minus-10 if you want to explain their mess. The recipe is simple. Do what you do and don’t give any opponent a path back into a game it has no business being in (Green Bay) and you will beat everyone you play. Nitpicking, but clean it up, please.
4. Why the heck have the Colts been so bad this season on offense?
It’s a great question and one that would require a lot of time to completely sort. The most basic answer is that they have been very poor at quarterback. Of course, the Colts were trying to improve on how bad they were at critical times in 2021 so they actually got worse. And that was an effort to fix what went wrong in 2020. Each move has led to one that has actually gotten worse as they have avoided any real attempt to start with a young QB and return to the start of the story. From the retirement of Andrew Luck until today, it has never felt like they were willing to consider reality and just look at these ranks:
They have one of the very best guards in the sport and a dynamic lead receiver, but, in three months they have been very bad and it is not getting any better.
5. How much trouble should this game be?
It is the NFL and therefore the Cowboys should be on their guard, but this is absolutely a case where this is a mismatch of a very high order between a much better team that is home, rested and motivated to make a statement against a team that has a curious coaching situation, short week and no motivation whatsoever but to get to the end of this season. Those elements usually sort themselves out before halftime.
Prediction: Cowboys 31, Colts 17
I know there will be a game coming soon when Dallas just doesn’t look right, but aside from allowing the Colts front to get to Prescott early, there are very few avenues where this game feels like a massive battle to the end. I suspect the Cowboys will be 9-3 by the end of the evening. We can talk more about all of this on Monday morning. This one seems pretty easy to see from here.
(Photo of Peyton Hendershot: Wesley Hitt / Getty Images)