Dak sucked. There is no way to sugar coat it or gloss over it. As much as I was looking forward to this opening game of the 2018 season it was so disappointing to see the quarterback be as bad as he was. Oh, he maneuvered his way around a tenuous pocket pretty well but when it came time to actually throw a pass he was just gawd-awful. The running game got a little better as the game wore on but 15 carries for 69 yards and a TD isn’t what anyone in Cowboys-land wanted or expected. Dak didn’t throw any picks in the game but it could be because all his throws were either too high or short hopped in front of his receivers. The poor offensive output was almost all on Dak. It didn’t help that every time Dallas seemed to have something going they would hold or have a false start or something to shoot themselves in the foot. The Cowboys never made it past mid field until the 3rd quarter. Not good and between Dak being lousy and drive killing penalties Dallas couldn’t get out of their own way.
Do you think there will be some second-guessing and a bit of finger pointing as the first attempt in a regular season game, ever, for new kicker Brett Maher ended up wide right? It was a 47-yard attempt but when you have just released the most accurate kicker, and all-time Cowboys best kicker, for a 28-year-old “rookie” who has never made an NFL field goal in his life then you have the makings for the local Dallas media to start ripping the coaching staff for letting Dan Bailey go. As a matter of fact, Maher hasn’t even made an extra point yet as he didn’t get the chance to kick the Cowboys point after their only TD of the game because they went for, and made, a 2-point conversion.
I was excited to see this defense play and except for some blown assignments covering Dak in the first half and some poor tackling I thought the Defense played really well. If you consider the good field position the offense kept giving to Carolina’s offense especially through all the first half a lesser defense would have been steam rolled by the Panthers. The only down side was a collision by Randy Gregory and DeMarcus Lawrence when they met at Cam Newton in the offensive backfield that resulted in a concussion to Gregory. Hopefully, he will be fine and ready for next week’s game against the New York Giants.
The old Jason Garrett is a terrible game manager reared its ugly head. In the 4th quarter the Cowboys had a 4th and 10 near midfield with all 3-time outs and the 2-minute warning and around 4 minutes left in the game Garrett chose to go for it and, given how bad Dak was playing, was not a great idea. Of course, the Cowboys failed to convert and the subsequent field position gave the Panthers a great chance to score and put the game out of reach. If Dallas had punted and pinned the Panther down around their own 10 or so. If Dallas holds then they get the ball right back at midfield. As it was the Cowboys D did hold and the Panthers punt resulted in a touchback and Dallas had the ball at their own 20 with no timeouts. Garrett sacrificed 30 yards of field position for no good reason. In this case, he was guilty of poor game management.
Yep, a very disappointing start to the season. Hopefully, things will get better. Hopefully, Dak gets better.