“Certainly we can go back and look at the percentage of when we were successful and all of that, ” Garrett said.
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Rookie quarterback Dak Prescott showed excellent chemistry with Bryant during the preseason, but it was missing in Week 1.
And it wasn’t as if Prescott ignored his top threat in his first regular-season game. Brown caught six passes for 47 yards and a touchdown in the Cincinnati win at Pittsburgh in Week 8, and he had seven catches for 87 yards in Week 13.
The numbers stick out, though.
That said, if Norman is the guy tasked with shadowing Bryant, the receiver welcomes the challenge of going up against one of the NFL’s best. “Let the competition, let people say what they want to say”.
However, that was not the only and maybe not even the primary issue with Washington’s coverage on Brown that night, and I don’t think it would have been a cure-all.
And even though Brown was giving him the business, the coaching staff never seemed to figure that out and didn’t do anything to help Breeland before the game got out of hand.
Offensive coordinator Scott Linehan also pointed out that on the deep throw to Bryant that was broken up in the end zone, Witten was open across the middle.
Sometimes in the National Football League the scheme is right and you get killed by execution. Witten and Beasley are good players who collect first downs, but they don’t punish defenses. It is not going to make almost as much a difference for him as the same equipment does in the hands of a pro. “So we’ll continue to work on that”.
It’s worth pointing out that Bryant was shut down to a large degree past year when the Cowboys took on the Carolina Panthers, too. “I’m not here to talk the talk, I’m just here to play”, Jenkins said. Seeing as how Breeland was seeing a helluva lot more of Brown than Norman was and that it wasn’t going almost as well for him in that matchup, I’d have thought doubling Brown at least a few times would’ve been a no-brainer. “We’re just going to keep pushing and stay behind him and be ready when he needs us”.
Josh Norman’s new division rivals have been gleefully prodding at the cornerback after Washington’s secondary was shredded in Week 1, but Norman himself isn’t getting too drawn into it. The previous time these two saw each other, Bryant was held to two catches for 26 yards in Carolina’s 33-14 rout of the Cowboys on Thanksgiving.
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It does not take a lovely football mind to know the best wide receiver in the NFL should attract only the top defenders from the opposing team.
