The Cowboys are coming off their first win of the season, but Week 3 presents a pretty obvious challenge.<\/p>\n
Dallas is going to Brazil with an offense that has, so far, been much better through the air than on the ground, while Baltimore brings one of the league\u2019s better rushing attacks into a matchup with a Cowboys defense that has struggled badly against the run.<\/p>\n
So, for Week 3, here\u2019s who to buy and who to sell.<\/p>\n
Prescott completed 26 of 31 passes for 279 yards and four touchdowns against Washington, posting a cool 143.8 passer rating, and that wasn\u2019t just a good game in isolation. Through two weeks, Dak has completed 73.8% of his passes for 454 yards, six touchdowns and one interception. He\u2019s also averaging 9.0 yards per attempt against Washington, up from 5.2 against the Giants.<\/p>\n
Now he gets a Baltimore defense that has been good overall but hasn\u2019t exactly been impenetrable through the air. The Ravens are allowing 191 passing yards per game, 11th in the league. More importantly, New Orleans quarterback Tyler Shough had considerable success throwing the ball in the second half of Baltimore\u2019s Week 2 loss, completing 15 of 19 passes for 150 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n
Another reason to like Dak here: Dallas may have to throw. The Cowboys are averaging just 67.5 rushing yards per game, 30th in the NFL. Baltimore, meanwhile, allows only 83.5 rushing yards per game, fifth in the league.<\/p>\n
If Dallas can\u2019t establish the run, more responsibility falls on Prescott, and given how he\u2019s played when asked to carry the offense so far, that\u2019s not necessarily a bad thing.<\/p>\n
Sell: Cowboys running backs<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that the Cowboys running backs are bad; they just haven\u2019t gotten going so far.<\/p>\n
Baltimore is allowing just 83.5 rushing yards per game. Dallas is averaging only 67.5 rushing yards per game, 30th. That\u2019s a pretty brutal combination. The Cowboys managed only 66 rushing yards on 21 attempts against Washington, even while Dak and the passing game were rolling. Dallas\u2019 own film review acknowledged that the team struggled to establish the run.<\/p>\n
Now the Ravens could get defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike back. He\u2019s been a two-time Pro Bowler and was a full participant in practice this week after dealing with a neck injury. His return would give Baltimore another significant piece in the middle of its defensive front.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a scenario where Dallas\u2019 running backs still have value as receivers. Williams already has eight catches through two games. But if we\u2019re talking strictly about the rushing production, sell it. The Cowboys will have a hard time suddenly turning into a decent rushing team against this defense.<\/p>\n
This one is even easier after what Lamb did last Sunday. Eight catches for153 yards and two touchdowns. That performance pushed Lamb to 13 catches for 197 yards and three touchdowns through two games. He\u2019s already averaging 15.2 yards per catch, and he accounted for more than half of Dak\u2019s passing yardage against Washington.<\/p>\n
The big question heading into Week 3 is whether Baltimore\u2019s secondary can slow down the Cowboys\u2019 connection between Prescott and Lamb, which already seems to be firing on all cylinders.<\/p>\n
The Ravens are allowing only 191 passing yards per game, but their defense just gave up 233 passing yards to New Orleans, including 150 from Shough in the second half and Baltimore knows exactly what it\u2019s dealing with.<\/p>\n
The Ravens have specifically identified Lamb and Pickens as a major challenge for a secondary that could also be without safety Malaki Starks. Baltimore may use Kyle Hamilton in different roles to help deal with Dallas\u2019 receivers.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the thing about Lamb right now: Dallas doesn\u2019t need him to be open by 10 yards to get him the football. He\u2019s coming off a game where he caught eight of nine targets and consistently won against Washington\u2019s coverage.<\/p>\n
If Baltimore devotes extra attention to him, that\u2019s when Pickens becomes even more interesting. If it doesn\u2019t? Feed 88.<\/p>\n
This one is also easy. The Cowboys have been bad against the run. Really bad. Dallas is allowing 173.5 rushing yards per game, the third-most in the NFL through two weeks. Baltimore is averaging 155 rushing yards per game, fourth in the league.<\/p>\n
Henry has already rushed for 212 yards and four touchdowns on 40 carries, averaging 5.3 yards per carry. Lamar Jackson has added another 74 yards on 11 carries. The Cowboys\u2019 defense also has another problem: they haven\u2019t consistently gotten off the field. Opponents have converted 17 of 25 third downs, a 68% rate, through two games.<\/p>\n
If Henry is consistently getting positive yardage on first and second down, Dallas could spend a lot of Sunday chasing Lamar Jackson around while watching the Ravens control the clock. And remember: Baltimore just lost to New Orleans after getting outscored 15-0 in the fourth quarter. The Ravens will have plenty of motivation to avoid another late collapse, and the best way to do that is probably the thing they do best: run the football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cowboys are coming off their first win of the season, but Week 3 presents a pretty obvious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,23679,32379,104,103],"class_list":["post-449435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys-analysis","tag-dallas-cowboys-discussion","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}