FRISCO, Texas – Rico Dowdle has been Dallas' leading rusher for most of the season, but Mike McCarthy categorized the run game as "by committee" for most of the year. On Thursday, however, McCarthy called Dowdle the Cowboys lead back, a title he's unofficially held but a recognition of far he's come as well.
"It's definitely a great recognition of being the lead back for America's team," Dowdle said. "But other than that I've just got to continue to go out there and keep doing what I'm doing."
In eight games this season, Dowdle has 374 yards on 83 carries, averaging 4.5 yards per carry. The last two weeks, Dowdle has run for 128 yards on 24 carries (5.3 ypc). McCarthy has constantly emphasized getting Dowdle more touches, and now he'll continue to get a majority of the workload.
"You have to get him the ball," McCarthy said of Dowdle. "That's my focus, to continue to get him opportunities. He's the lead back."
Those numbers aren't blowing anybody out of the water, and Dowdle has yet to eclipse a 100-yard rushing game or score a rushing touchdown all season, but that doesn't mean the ground game hasn't a part of the offensive equation.
"I wouldn't necessarily say that it's been terrible," Dowdle said. "I know our numbers and stuff are not where we want them to be, but it's just football."
The first three weeks on the ground for Dallas were glaringly poor, but the unit has refocused on what they do best schematically, and slowly but surely progression is being made.
"It's just been a lot simpler, and we've attacked with our bread-and-butter concepts and stuff we've been good at in the past…" Dowdle said. "And just sticking to it, that was the main thing from Week 1 to now."
Dowdle has added a lot of value in the receiving game this year for Dallas too, scoring three touchdowns 24 receptions and 166 yards. That flexibility is a big part of Dowdle's game, and a key piece to staying on the field.
"You want to be able to do both, it's hard to take you off the field when you can run it out the backfield, catch it out the backfield, just being versatile," Dowdle said. "That's what the game has come to, I definitely take pride in that."
The change to lead back is really only in title because the confidence in Dowdle has been there from his teammates all season, and he's only continuing to put together good games as Dallas tries to get back into the win column.
"Rico's running hard, he's running fast, running hard," Cooper Rush said. "He broke a couple of longs ones there for us last week and he's been doing it all year, he's been consistent, and we look forward to it every time he touches it."
