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Football

The Cowboys’ Secondary Is Falling Apart

First came the injuries. Then came an alarming drop in performance.
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Trevon Diggs' performance has suffered as the injuries have mounted in Dallas' secondary. Raymond Carlin III-USA TODAY Sports

The Cowboys’ defense was so dominant in the first half of the season that the radio station where I work kept fielding calls and emails from listeners attempting to give the group a catchy moniker. We needed our version of Doomsday, or so they figured. Opposing coordinators and quarterbacks were living in constant fear, and for good reason. The defense carried the team while the offense worked through its issues and injuries. 

We have not received any such calls in the last month. You can blame the cornerbacks for that.

Dallas entered the season with a decent—but hardly great—situation at cornerback. Trevon Diggs is an elite, electric playmaker whose aggression can at times be used against him. Jourdan Lewis and Anthony Brown were serviceable. The trio worked well enough when all three were on the field, in no small part due to the league’s best pass rush doing the heavy lifting. 

Now, with Brown and Lewis lost for the year to injury, the Cowboys are living through the classic “depth will be tested” cliche. Coaches and players robotically say this, and while it’s technically true, all it really means is players who are less talented, less tested, and usually both now play important roles. Few teams in the league could lose two of their top three corners and not have it be noticeable.

So, how noticeable has it been? Through the first 13 weeks of the season, Dallas led the league in Dropback/EPA allowed. Over the last three games, with Lewis and Brown both out, the Cowboys rank 31st (second-worst). EPA can be heavily weighted toward creating turnovers, because getting the ball back—or as commentators call it, “the momentum”—is the most important thing a defense can do. Dallas had 12 interceptions in its first 12 games; it has four in its last three. So that doesn’t explain the significant change in efficiency. 

This is also reflected in the Cowboys’ team-wide Pro Football Focus coverage grade, which fell from third to 31st over the same segments of the season. 

Much like an offensive line, the secondary works in concert. Trust and communication factor heavily into preventing the unit from giving up chunk plays. I don’t think it is any coincidence that Diggs has had the worst three-game stretch of his season since his fellow corners were sidelined. He has been targeted 20 times, giving up 15 completions for nine first downs and a touchdown. Suffice to say, far from what you expect from a player who will soon be one of the highest-paid players at his position, if not the highest. 

The drop-off in the secondary is magnified by the types of routes opposing quarterbacks are electing to call. Through the first 13 weeks of the season, Dallas faced the sixth-lowest average depth of target at just 7.7 yards. Since the injuries, that number has spiked to 10.3, the fourth-highest mark in the league.

Certainly, some of these changes in rankings and efficiency are related to the offenses a team faces. But it’s no coincidence to see a drop-off this significant after the loss of two pivotal players. Dallas’ secondary is now a problem.

Interestingly, the pressure rate from the pass rush has not really waned over this stretch. The guys up front just aren’t completing the play. The Cowboys still rank third in pressure percentage, but after averaging four sacks a game through Week 13, they have just one in their last three games. For context, Dallas has a similar pressure rate as Philadelphia over this span, and the Eagles have 21 sacks. I’d love to point to the Cowboys facing more slippery quarterbacks over the last few weeks. Except … the Eagles saw Daniel Jones, Justin Fields, and Dak Prescott. I don’t have a great answer for why the pass rush has stopped turning their pressures into sacks, other than maybe fatigue. Micah Parsons plays an obscene number of snaps. Perhaps it has become tougher to place the final piece of the puzzle when getting pressure as the season has worn on him. 

I doubt this trend continues, especially when facing Tennessee and Malik Willis on Thursday. The point is not getting the quarterback to the ground has fully exposed an already vulnerable secondary. 

And whether that gets corrected, all Dallas can do is hope that 2021 third-rounder Nashon Wright and rookie DaRon Bland can grow up quickly. Each has shown flashes of ability, and for Wright, in particular, the time is now. He has an opportunity to prove he can be the starter next year. Brown is heading into free agency, but even if Dallas opts to bring him back, he’ll be a 30-year-old coming off a torn Achilles. Whether Wright fills that outside corner spot long-term is a conversation for another time. In any event, he’s the only guy on the roster capable of forcing his way into that conversation.

Dallas has decided that 2021 second-round pick Kelvin Joseph is currently unplayable. If the 44th overall pick can’t get on the field in his second year with two players at this position done for the year, it might mean the end is near. Add in off-field issues dating to college, and my guess is Dallas will move on sooner rather than later.

But if Bland can hold down the nickel corner spot and Wright can establish himself as a viable option on the outside, the massive whiff on Joseph won’t sting as much. The Cowboys’ secondary will most likely look very different next season, and the remainder of this season will go a long way in determining who is a part of that look. If porous pass defense is the reason why the season again ends earlier than expected, the front office will go back to the drawing board. If it stiffens and holds together better than it has over the last three weeks, the club has an opportunity to make a deep playoff run. 

The Cowboys have touted themselves as a “draft and develop” team. The “develop” part of that strategy is about to tell the story of the 2022 season. And if that story ends with that long-awaited return to the Super Bowl, then maybe, just maybe, we’ll get phone calls about nicknames again.

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Jake Kemp

Jake Kemp

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Jake Kemp covers the Cowboys and Mavericks for StrongSide. He is a lifelong Dallas sports fan who previously worked for…

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