Cowboys Pregame Three Thoughts for Wk 1
One of the top challenges of the season is first as Cowboys must deal with Cleveland.
Before we start, I would like to welcome our many new subscribers to a new season of Cowboys Football. It is officially go time. I am positive you will enjoy this incredibly deep and immersive approach to the season, but I would like you to know what to expect on a weekly basis for a normal “Sunday Game” week.
MONDAY: My column on the game. We call it The Morning After, which was somewhat original when I started doing it, but now it seems like the most common name a column could ever have in the football world. Oh well, I’m too stubborn to change now.
TUESDAY: This is the breakdown of the Cowboys' offense with stats, analysis, and film. We call this Decoding McCarthy because it seemed clever.
WEDNESDAY: This is a breakdown of the Cowboys' defense with stats, analysis, and film. We call this the Zimmer Report, partly because I have nothing more clever.
FRIDAY/SATURDAY: Depending on the schedule, I will get this out by lunch on Saturday but often on Friday. This is our Pregame Three Thoughts on the upcoming game and the matchups that I am locking in on as an extensive preview piece.
These four pieces are plenty to keep us all busy, and even though I will work in some other items occasionally, I want you to know you can count on these being in your email box without fail throughout the season – however long it goes. Sometimes longer, rarely shorter, but this is what brings most people through the door, so you can set your watch to these four newsletters from here until, hopefully, February.
Now, on with our first pregame piece:
There are many different ways to start a season. If truth be told, I assume a coach would hand-select one of his easier matchups to put first so that he may work through all uncertainties before a heavyweight matchup. But we know television does not want that to happen, and the more television pays billions, the more they get to make the Week 1 matchups some of the best of the year.
So, Ravens must go to Kansas City. Packers and Eagles must go to Brazil. Rams, you head back to Detroit on Sunday Night. Jets and Niners on Monday Night. These are all wonderful playoff clashes, and so is the one that Dallas must handle – a Week 1 game that will take them into the deep waters in Cleveland.
Last year, the Browns opened at home by destroying the Cincinnati Bengals, 24-3. On that day, Jim Schwartz threw it all at Joe Burrow, and the confident QB1 had the worst day of his career. He was 14-31 for 82 yards for the entire game and had a passer rating of 52. The mighty Bengals scored 3 points.
The Browns went 8-1 at home last year, with one week being the day they made the 49ers look extremely ordinary. They won 11 games overall, despite QB chaos – did you know they started five different QBs and still won 11 games? – and huge injuries all over their offense. Why? Because their defense is the real deal, and they are going to attempt to rattle the Cowboys to start 2024.