Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Bob Breunig…
With Dak Prescott as the highest paid player in NFL history at $60-million per year, Jerry Wayne is paying his quarterback $3.53-million per game. That’s $185,758 per completion on Sunday or $19,717 per passing yard. Or $3.53-million per touchdown pass.
The Cowboys defense was flying around on Sunday, getting up in Deshaun Watson’s grill on every dropback, stuffing backs at the line on every run, and breaking up passes all over the field. Congratulations to Mike Zimmer who knows how to disguise a rush and pass coverage. The Browns offensive line never knew what was coming. And most of it was done without blitzing. Some of the concern around Zimmer’s return to Dallas was his toughness and no-nonsense approach. Do NFL players respond to that kind of thing nowadays? Maybe Zimmer and McCarthy are working a good cop – bad cop thing. That would make Jerry the evil mayor.
Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson has plenty of issues. He was hit by Cowboys defenders a league-high 17 times on Sunday and sacked six times, throwing for only 169-yards and two interceptions. It was telling to me that Watson’s Cleveland teammates were not helping him get up after those knockdowns. Whenever they hit the turf, most quarterbacks are helped up by two or three hustling teammates. Watson was not. I also noticed in the second half that Watson extended his hand to help up a Browns offensive lineman who had recovered a Watson fumble. The lineman swatted Deshaun’s hand away, rolled over, and got up on his own. Not a great sign. How much of Watson’s putrid play on Sunday had to do with the death of his father earlier last week? How much of it had to do with a brand new lawsuit filed in Houston yesterday alleging sexual assault and battery charges in another weird massage situation? The Browns traded three number-one draft picks and two other picks to the Texans to sign Watson to a fully guaranteed $230-million contract after the first 24 lawsuits and charges of sexual assault had been filed. The Jameis Winston era is about to begin in Cleveland.
As much as I hate to admit it, that was a quality win for Dallas Sunday. It’s hard to win on the road in the NFL–all five of the Cowboys’ regular season losses last year were on the road–but the Cowboys made it look easy. CeeDee Lamb made a strong case for completely eliminating training camp and preseason games. Zeke Elliot looks strong and lean and able to handle ten to twelve carries per game. Kendricks might be a beast in the middle, which could make Parsons even more dangerous. And Cooks is still a legitimate deep threat for Dak. The Browns were a playoff team last season with the NFL’s number one ranked defense. Cleveland was favored to win Sunday. But the Cowboys had it put away by halftime. Next come the Saints in the Cowboys’ home opener, a team that almost hung half a hundred on Carolina Sunday. Dallas is favored by 6.5 points. This one won’t be nearly as easy.
Finally, you do realize that you’re going to have to listen to Tom Brady during half of the Cowboys games this year. In just two years, we’ve gone from Troy Aikman in the Fox Sports primetime booth to Brady. That’s a sea change, man. Wow. My favorite part of yesterday’s game, the whole game, from start to finish, my favorite thing that happened all day, was the first shot from the broadcast booth after the game had started when Fox rules analyst Mike Pereira left Brady hanging on an awkward fist bump. Thank you, Mike! You did that for all of us!
I am not writing a single word about the Longhorns’ dominant win against the defending champion Michigan Wolverines at the Big House on Saturday. You’ll get nothing here on the most impressive win by an SEC team last weekend. I’m not going to say a word about the Longhorns’ number two national ranking. All I will say is that Quinn Ewers’ line in the new Dr Pepper Fansville commercial–“I don’t do backup, even if he has great hair and famous relatives”–is the line of the year in that series so far.
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