With a record of two wins and one loss, the Dallas Cowboys rank second in the NFC East trailing the Philadelphia Eagles despite losing dak prescott midway through the first game of the 2022 NFL campaign.
For Week 4 Jerry Jones’s team will face the Washington Commanders and it will depend on his defense more than the performance of backup QB Cooper Rush.
If I kept Carson Wentz and the Commanders under 200 net passing yards, it would be the first time since 1977 that a Dallas team has such a dominant pass defense in the first four games of a campaign.
In that season, the Cowboys won their second NFL championship by beating the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII from the hands of defensive backs Harvey Martin, Randy White, Cliff Harris, Mel Renfro and Charlie Waters.
At the moment, the Cowboys are the fourth-best defense in terms of passing yards allowed per game because they register an average of 176.3 after three commitments. This is something they haven’t achieved since 1972.
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Other defensive stats in favor
What could work in the Cowboys’ favor is that when they run the blitz on opposing QBs they’ve been successful this year. At the moment, Dallas registers 13 sacks after three games and only in three seasons have they registered more in the same period. In 1987 they added 16, in 1994, 15 and in 1975, 14.
Likewise, the Cowboys have not allowed any of their rivals to exceed the 20-point mark (Bucs 19, Bengals 17 and Giants 16). The last time they did this was in the 1973 season when they limited the Bears, Saints and Cardinals to 17, 3 and 10 points respectively.
