FRISCO, Texas – The scoreboard at the end of the game may not reflect it, but the Cowboys defense has improved especially in the first half of games over the course of the last few weeks. The problem is there are second halves too, and that's where Dallas has fallen apart.
"Part of the things we didn't do well is we weren't disciplined in our pass rush lanes…" Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer said about what Dallas' defense struggled to do in the second half against the Philadelphia Eagles. "We got to play clean, we can't grab guys, we can't hold guys, it's just the way it is, and we're going to continue to coach that."
And they played clean in the first 30 minutes against the Eagles, forcing two turnovers, five sacks and setting up their offense with first and goal at the Philadelphia six-yard line, where the Cowboys would go on to gain one yard and settle for three. And yet it still wasn't enough, with the offense doing them no favors and the Eagles winning 34-6 behind 20 second half points. Regardless, the message remained the same.
"Keep grinding…" Zimmer said. "There's still a lot of football left, we obviously have to play better. I think defensively we have been playing better the last two weeks in spurts, we've got to sustain."
Micah Parsons' reinsertion into the lineup, albeit in a limited capacity, had a ripple effect on the Cowboys pass rush. Parsons generated a team-leading five pressures on 20 pass rushes to go along with two sacks and a forced fumble. It's safe to say his presence was more than welcome for the Dallas defense.
"He's a flamethrower," Zimmer said of Parsons. "You definitely see the difference in the speed on the field with [Parsons] and [DeMarvion Overshown] on the field at the same time, that's allowed more juice coming out."
Overshown provided a great bit of juice on Sunday, leading the Cowboys with 11 tackles to pair with two sacks, tying his career high in tackles and earning his first career multi-sack game.
"He's come a long way since training camp and spring practice," Zimmer said. "He keeps getting a little bit better on being more precise on his alignments, when he sees it, he goes and gets it, he's done a nice job."
Perhaps the most impressive defensive effort in the last few games has been Dallas' ability to stop opposing running backs, holding Bijan Robinson and Saquon Barkley to a combined 152 yards in that time span. Zimmer credited some changes in personnel on the line of scrimmage for making a difference.
"I thought the defensive line was more aggressive yesterday coming off the ball," Zimmer said. "We've had to mix up fronts, change up fronts, change up movements, we've had to do a lot of different things… we just had to adjust quite a bit."
All of these improvements and big statistical games are well and good, but the fact of the matter is the Cowboys are 3-6 and cannot find a way to consistently stop opposing offenses, especially in the third quarter, and have given up an average of 28.8 points per game, the second highest amount in the NFL. There's no excuse for it, and this season clearly hasn't gone as expected.
"It's football, obviously it's not really what we anticipated, but it is what it is…" Zimmer said. "You change things up, find some things that are going to work for the players that we have."
And things aren't getting any easier either with the 6-4 Houston Texans coming into town behind one of the best young quarterbacks in the NFL in CJ Stroud, who is surrounded by talent on both sides of the ball.
"They look explosive," Zimmer said of the Texans. "Their offense is one of the most explosive ones with big plays, quarterback really does a great job, he kind of flicks the ball and has good accuracy, he moves well in the pocket… receivers look pretty good, running back, good."
