{"id":89775,"date":"2025-09-08T08:51:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T08:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775"},"modified":"2025-09-08T08:51:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T08:51:24","slug":"cowboys-defense-had-a-massive-week-1-hole-and-it-wasnt-micah-parsons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys&#8217; defense had a massive Week 1 hole (and it wasn&#8217;t Micah Parsons)"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><\/figure>\n<div>\n<p id=\"inline-text-0\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/insidethestar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/05\/cwinsidethestar_cowboys-news_new-coach-new-draft-class-new-chapter-for-the-2025-cowboys.webp\" alt=\"New Coach, New Draft Class, New Chapter for the 2025 Cowboys\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The biggest question going into Thursday night was how the Dallas Cowboys would response to losing All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons. It was a commendable effort all things considered, but Dallas fell just short<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\">In the second half, both defenses made stops and forced punts, with the Cowboys defense finally bringing the heat to Jalen Hurts. The first half, though, was highlighted by a bunch of offensive firepower. Cowboys fans were quick to point out that Jalen Hurts was given way too much time to throw and way too much space to run.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\">Of course, Dallas missed Parsons&#8217; impact, but to be honest their biggest issue on defense had nothing to do with Parsons. Instead, the Cowboys didn&#8217;t even bother to put a spy on Hurts for pretty much the whole first half.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"inline-text-3\">Cowboys defense didn&#8217;t bother to put a spy on Jalen Hurts in the first half<\/h2>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\">Hurts finished the game with 14 rushes for 62 yards and two touchdowns. That reads like a stat line for Eagles backup running backs A.J. Dillon or Will Shipley, but it was Hurts.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\">This showcased just how phenomenal the Cowboys&#8217; secondary was. A.J. Brown saw only one target all night, a clear sign the unit came to play. Meanwhile, Matt Eberflus leaned so hard into his bend-don\u2019t-break approach that it backfired, allowing Jalen Hurts to score some of the easiest touchdowns of his career.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\">On 2nd-and-goal in the middle of the second quarter, the Cowboys&#8217; secondary blanketed the Eagles&#8217; receivers, only they played the receivers so tight into the end zone that Hurts had a bunch of room to run left and break the plane for his second score of the night. Jack Sanborn might&#8217;ve been the closest guy to play the spy, but he was playing so deep that there was no way for him to stop Hurts before he crossed the plane.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\">Eberflus&#8217; plan also came back to bite them on the final drive of the game. On a 3rd-and-3, Eberflus decided to rush four while giving Hurts the space to move the chains and ice the game. This was something that wasn&#8217;t corrected, and it came back to haunt them in a critical part of the game.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\">The defensive play-calling needs to be corrected ASAP. This is an NFL with too many dynamic quarterbacks that can make plays running the football.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"inline-text-9\"><\/h3>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jalen Hurts was able to run all over the field last night thanks to one adjustment the Dallas Cowboys&#8217; defense never got right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":89782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cowboys&#039; defense had a massive Week 1 hole (and it wasn&#039;t Micah Parsons) - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cowboys&#039; defense had a massive Week 1 hole (and it wasn&#039;t Micah Parsons) - NEWS USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jalen Hurts was able to run all over the field last night thanks to one adjustment the Dallas Cowboys&#039; defense never got right.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"NEWS USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-08T08:51:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/LUU-1-35.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"MrLuu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"MrLuu\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775\",\"name\":\"Cowboys' defense had a massive Week 1 hole (and it wasn't Micah Parsons) - NEWS USA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/LUU-1-35.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-08T08:51:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-08T08:51:24+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/#\/schema\/person\/301df8231b74387730cd1ed513c32f69\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/LUU-1-35.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/LUU-1-35.jpg\",\"width\":1080,\"height\":1080},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=89775#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Cowboys&#8217; 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