was enough to frustrate fans<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nCowboys corner DaRon Bland was the closest guy to Egbuka. He said the Cowboys were in a Cover 3 zone, meaning he and two others were responsible for the deepest thirds of the coverage. It\u2019s designed to ensure that no receiver gets deeper than them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Cowboys also lined up deep on that play from the beginning. They dropped seven players back. None of those seven players were within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. Bland immediately turned and started jogging backward at the snap of the ball. He jogged back to the 22-yard line \u2014 about five yards past the first down marker \u2014 before he tried to turn back to cover Egbuka. Bland slipped and fell. No other Cowboys were close in zone coverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just got to come down and finish it,\u201d Bland said after the game, adding that he was tasked with playing deep. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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Bland was then asked about his coverage going well beyond the first down marker.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn that one, I\u2019m pretty much going off the receiver,\u201d Bland said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bland wasn\u2019t the only player whose coverage went well beyond the first down marker. Safety Malik Hooker also dropped back deep, though there wasn\u2019t an imminent threat of a receiver surpassing him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was also the second time Bland fell in coverage on Sunday. Bland fell down in coverage against Tampa Bay wide receiver Tez Johnson, which resulted in a 64-yard reception.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just slipped,\u201d Bland said. \u201cI\u2019ve got to keep my feet on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Bland has now been targeted 27 times this season, according to NFL Pro. He\u2019s allowed 18 receptions for 292 yards and two touchdowns. He hasn\u2019t recorded an interception, though he nearly had one in the fourth quarter against the Buccaneers. The dropped interception could\u2019ve resulted in a touchdown, too, if he was able to catch it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got to execute,\u201d said Bland, who has 15 career interceptions, including six that were returned for touchdowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said on 105.3 The Fan (KRLD-FM): \u201cHe had a chance there to do a Bland, which is intercept the ball in a key time. That was meaningful as it turned out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones was adamant that Bland, despite having two foot surgeries in the previous two years, hasn\u2019t seen a drop off in his physical abilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe\u2019s got to continue to work to play at the level we expect of him,” Jones said. “He\u2019s paid because of how he played in the past. One of the things you can always bet on \u2014 one of the surest things \u2014 is when you\u2019ve seen him do it in the past they can do it again, if they haven\u2019t had physical diminishment of their physical skills. And he hasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Kenny Gainwell (1) is tackled by Dallas Cowboys cornerback Daron Bland (26) at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[732,102,104,103,88775,88229],"class_list":["post-461461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-article","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-jerry-jones","tag-tp-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461461","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=461461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}