The Cowboys had the ball at the end of the game with a chance to win it, but the Giants were able to stand tall.
Advertisement
But he could point to a lot of things the Cowboys did right last season as loss was followed after loss. There just weren’t very many creases.
But for one week at least the results were the same, largely because the Cowboys had to settle for four field goals and conservative play-calling by coach Jason Garrett.
Here are Cowboys Wire’s game grades for Week 1.
Dallas needed to stop the clock, but Williams caught the ball and headed up field and the Cowboys were unable to set up and spike the ball to possibly set up a 62-yard game-winning field goal by Dan Bailey.
Dallas was 1-for-3 in the red zone on Sunday (the Giants were 3-of-3 in that category on Sunday, so if you’re looking for a distinction in winning and losing there you go). If the Dallas defense does not stiffen up throughout the rest of the season, they will be out of the race even before Tony Romo’s return. But they still allowed five scoring drives and while none of the final scores came in the air, it was still discouraging to see the Giants blow coverage assignments against a rookie quarterback. Today’s win was his first career National Football League start, and Prescott had been playing lights out in the preseason. Prescott had a solid game. In fact, he played quite well. He finished the game with 34 yards on four catches.
WHERE’S DEZ: Prescott looked for star receiver Dez Bryant a few times, but the 2014 All-Pro had just one catch for 8 yards on Prescott’s first pass. Bryant had another catch-that-wasn’t moment similar to the Green Bay playoff game in 2014 on what was originally ruled a 24-yard touchdown in the second quarter. While the season is far from over for the Cowboys, opening weekend was a winnable game for Dallas and the team will likely regret letting Sunday’s contest get away from them. Prior to Victor Cruz’s go-ahead touchdown, Vereen ran the ball three straight times for 21 total yards.
Jenkins played all 78 of the team’s defense snaps on Sunday and was primarily lined up across from Dez Bryant.
This loss was tough for the Cowboys to swallow. If it was 2015, the Giants would have likely lost the game.
-Running back Ezekiel Elliott was drafted fourth overall by the Cowboys because he is considered a franchise running back. The Cowboys began a new era with two rookies steering their offense.
One the Giants struggled to trod too many times a season ago. However, Prescott showed today that he is capable of getting wins in Romo’s absence.
Advertisement
“We weren’t good at all in any phase or in any part of the game”, he said.
