DQ Report, Wk 15 - Bills run Boys out of Buffalo

The defensive autopsy was just as ugly as imagined. Many mistakes were made.

Megatron.

The Calvin Johnson.

That’s the entire list of Cowboys opponents in the last two decades who had more yards from scrimmage than Buffalo RB James Cook had on Sunday against Dallas.

Megatron had a ridiculous 329 yards of receiving on October 27, 2013, when Detroit beat Dallas, 31-30.

It was another horrid showing from a horrid defense in a year that we all know as “The Monte Kiffin debacle” of 2013. Some day, we will revisit just how bad of a year that ended up being, but trust me, it was bad.

Anyway, on that day, Johnson had 329 yards from scrimmage and for some reason fell 7 yards short of the 336-yard record that Flipper Anderson set back in 1989. Seems to me that if you get that close, they should throw you one more slant so that you can finish the job, but, I guess Jeff Heath had enough at 329 (that was mean, Jeff Heath is a good dude who played hard for the Cowboys).

Regardless, here is James Cook. Cook has been Dalvin Cook’s little brother for a while and admittedly, he is starting to breakout even more now that Buffalo has changed offensive coordinators to Joe Brady.

But, Cook’s career rushing high before Sunday was 123 yards against Las Vegas in September. He had 179 on Sunday. His career-high for scrimmage yards was 159 that same day. On Sunday, he ended the proceedings with a crazy 221. And yes, he now just trails Megatron for the honors of the last two decades against Dallas.

Want a crazier factoid? He had 92 yards after contact Sunday. Broken tackles galore! That also is second-best in the last two decades of Cowboys defensive football. Who does he trail? Dalvin Cook, his older brother, had 99 yards against Dallas in 2019.

The thing is, the 2013 and the 2019 defense were not very good. The 2013 defense was historically awful — brutally bad, in fact.

But, we thought the 2023 Cowboys defense was excellent. At least, we did think that. Now, we are left to really wonder.

Because I don’t quite have the appetite for a super long breakdown of how bad this was with an early flight waiting for me, here is the reel I put together of all 11 plays in this game where James Cook either got a first down or scored a touchdown. It isn’t going to be pretty.