Cowboys offense gets its chance to shine in rout of Jets

National Football League

Published Sep. 17, 2023 10:06 p.m. ET

The Dallas Cowboys defense is already drawing comparisons to some of the greatest defenses in NFL history. They have gotten all the headlines and credit so far for the team’s impressive 2-0 start. They have been dominant, suffocating and turnover-happy.

But here’s the best part for the Cowboys, and the scariest part for the rest of the NFL: Their offense is still pretty dangerous too.

They haven’t really been needed much the first two weeks, but they showed a little of their own powers on Sunday during the Cowboys’ 30-10 win over the New York Jets. The Jets may be a dead team walking with Zach Wilson forced to take over for the injured Aaron Rodgers at quarterback, but they are loaded with talent on the defensive side.

And putting up 30 points and 382 yards on that Jets defense is no joke at all.

It’s just more proof that this Cowboys team is really the total package, and might be the franchise’s best team since their last Super Bowl team 28 years ago. The defense proved itself with its seven-sack, three-turnover, shutout performance against the New York Giants on Opening Night, and it was more of the same against the Jets on Sunday.

But this time the offense got going too.

And Dak Prescott did it without one of his top two receivers — Brandin Cooks, who missed the game with a sprained knee. Prescott completed his first 13 passes en route to a 31-for-38, 255-yard, two-touchdown performance. He did most of his damage, as he always does, by throwing to CeeDee Lamb, who had a career-high 11 catches for 143 yards.

“I know what I’m capable of doing and the things I’m pretty good at it,” Lamb told reporters after the game. “The show isn’t over.”

He meant his own show, but there was a lot more to the Cowboys’ offensive show, too. They got 134 yards on the ground, too, behind 72 from Tony Pollard. And they didn’t turn the ball over at all. They ground the Jets into submission, holding the ball for 42 minutes and 15 seconds. It was a number undoubtedly aided by the Jets’ JV quarterback and his three interceptions. But the Cowboys still had to hold the ball against a defense that ranked No. 4 in the NFL last season and tortured Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen into a three-interception nightmare loss last Monday night.

It was proof that the Cowboys — who have now out-scored their two opponents (both from New York) 70-10 this season — won’t be carried by their defense. They are one of the most multi-dimensional teams in the entire NFL.

“I like how we’ve done it in different ways, so that’s good,” said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. “I do feel very good about that. I think we’ve seen a lot of the fundamentals of our team, special teams, offense, defense, certain things that we’ve put in. We’re trying, we’re using them.”

And this may be the best part of their overall performance: They have forced seven turnovers, while committing none. That includes, obviously, no interceptions for Prescott. That’s huge, no matter which defenses they’ve played, considering the turnover nightmare he lived through last year. He famously threw 12 interceptions in his 15 starts in 2022, and then threw two more in the playoffs to basically throw the Cowboys’ season away.

Now he’s gone without an interception in back-to-back games — something he hadn’t done since the last four games in 2021.

“It’s something I’ve left,” Prescott said. “The interceptions, I guess when you lead the league it will never go away. To be candid, I really don’t care about the questions about them at this point.”

If he keeps this going, he won’t get many more. But it was the Cowboys’ biggest question heading into this season, and his play has given a great answer so far. If Prescott can really perform like this against strong defenses and he really can avoid the interception plague he suffered from last year, the Dallas Cowboys are a Super Bowl contender, period. Because that really was the missing piece.

Everything else is there. He’s got the weapons around him. They’ve got the running game. They have a powerful offensive line. And they have a defense that, as Micah Parsons has boasted, is “The best defense in the National Football League.”

They’re 2-0. They’ve shown, as Jones said, they can win in a variety of ways. And they’ve yet to show any real weakness. In other words, the Cowboys may have much more than the NFL’s best defense. Two weeks into the season, they look a lot like the NFL’s best team.

Ralph Vacchiano is the NFC East reporter for FOX Sports, covering the Commanders, Eagles and Giants. He spent the previous six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.