NFL: Cowboys wrestle Arizona in spite of a wobbly start

The Arizona Cardinals don’t have a green branch this season.In the season’s first home game of the season, it won a 17-28 defeat against the Dallas Cowboys – despite a great start.But the known problems in the offensive line became obvious once again, Dallas was able to make defensive adjustments – and relied on Dak Prescott.

Both teams had to complain about some serious failures in advance.The Cards had to play again without Bucannon, Humphries and Iupati – at least Iupati and Bucannon had hoped for an operation until the end.Receiver John Brown also failed to get fit in time.On the part of the cowboys were missing defensive Carroll, Awuzie and Hitchens.And the personal problems in Dallas’ Defense quickly became apparent.

Carson Palmer (29/48,325 YDS, 2 TD) quickly found gaps in the secondary, especially over the middle of the field.Although the cowboys played a good run defense, their zone coverage was too fragile at first.Arizona dominated the first quarter with 140:3 yards at 13:06 minutes (!) of possession time.Palmer made a touchdown at the first Drive Jaron Brown from 25 yards, but Arizona also missed a field goal from 36 yards.

It was one of several individual mistakes Arizona struggled with.A clearly missed tackle from Mathieu made a 30-yard run of the long inefficient Elliott possible, punishments facilitated cowboy drives and Dak Prescott (13/18,183 YDS, 2 TD) jumped spectacularly into the final zone after a good point return from Switzer via Zone Read because Golden misread the play.After a first half, which Arizona dominated by playing, it was a draw.

And things were getting better and better for Dallas: Elliott had a little more space at the start of the second half, Dez Bryant carried several defenders into the final zone after a short Prescott pass.But this time the cards answered, Palmer found Fitzgerald twice deep, the second pass to the touchdown.But Prescott had the better end: several spectacular long passes to Butler paved the way for an important away win, and Arizona couldn’t keep pace because of his line.Nevertheless, at least the onside kick would have been possible, but Arians chose a pass instead of the short field goal – Incomplete, Turnover on Downs, one minute before the end of the game.

Arizona Cardinals (1-2) – Dallas Cowboys (2-1)17:28 (7:0,0:7,7:7,3:14) BOXSCORE

It is extremely unusual to see Dallas’ offensive line with two bad games in a row – but after being dominated in Denver, the Cowboys line had a hard time in Arizona as well.All the more important was that Prescott repeatedly equalized the pass rush: In the course of the game he moved better and better in the pocket, the absolute highlight were his movements and the pass to the 21:14.It was his longest NFL-completion outside of the pocket (37 yards) and a little later followed the decisive pass on Butler.

Arizona had just crossed the field goal and had cut back to 17:21, with over six minutes remaining on the clock.The Cardinals-Defense had the chance to give their own offense the chance to win a game drive.But the Cowboys played their best play call of the evening: When First Down expected everything to be an Elliott run, Prescott Butler found the 53-yard pass – and so the Cowboys were back in the Red Zone in a flash.A few layouts later, Elliott stormed into the final zone, Game Over.

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Spectacular game by DeMarcus Lawrence.Dallas’ best pass rusher destroyed several cardinal drives on his own and dominated the right side of the offensive line, especially Jared Veldheer.Also against the run, he was in the backfield several times like lightning, it was his dominant appearance that Palmer had more and more problems to exploit the gaps in the secondary of the cowboys.Lawrence’s individual superiority also allowed the cowboys more 3-men rush, which Arizona couldn’t cope with.Three sacks were on his account in the end, his influence on the game was much greater.

Complementing the star of the game, Arizona’s offensive line was simply the weakest unit on the field – once again.As in the first three games, Palmer himself was under pressure against the 3-men rush, and Arizona was unable to protect his quarterback during the game.And this also applied to the run-blocking, the area where Arizona’s line was one of the better ones in the NFL in the pre-season.In the first half alone, Dallas had six tackles for loss