DALLAS — The Dallas Cowboys now live in a space where they are moving forward with their offseason plans, while also looking back at what happened during their 2023 season to better assist in their ability to reach their goals. It’s not a fun place to be with one big game left on the NFL schedule, as the team fell short of their ultimate goal of winning the Super Bowl.
Despite not making it again, the year wasn’t a total failure. Winning the division isn’t easy, especially considering no NFC East team has repeated in the last 19 seasons, and Mike McCarthy leading the way to 12 victories for a third consecutive year is a remarkable feat that no Cowboys coach had previously accomplished. There were also several milestones and awards won by the players, a symbol of individual success that is worthy of applause.
Yet collectively, Dallas didn’t finish the way that they had hoped, holding the Lombardi Trophy. By not doing so, everyone in the organization shares in that disappointment and will need to reflect on the reasons why.
Here’s what went right and wrong in the 2023 season for the Cowboys:
Right: Offensive adjustments
The Cowboys implemented something they dubbed the Texas Coast offense, where they took some West Coast offensive principles and married them to what they have been doing to make it a successful unit under previous coordinator Kellen Moore. In addition, McCarthy returned to calling plays.
It wasn’t a smooth transition at first, but the Cowboys found their offensive groove when McCarthy trusted quarterback Dak Prescott and his best skilled players to make it work. As the season went on, there was more passing early in the down and distance, and McCarthy actively tried to get the ball to his best playmaker in wide receiver CeeDee Lamb.
Prescott also eventually found a rhythm with veteran receiver Brandin Cooks and tight end Jake Ferguson as the year went on.
Most of the offense’s success came following the bye week when the team had a chance to reset and make adjustments. From that moment on, the Cowboys were among the best offenses in the league, led by Prescott.
McCarthy’s ability to make the necessary changes isn’t common among coaches who have been in the league as long as he has, but his willingness to adjust helped guide the team to 12 wins.
Wrong: Quinn’s ability to adjust
Just as the offense altered to become a better version as the year wore on, Dan Quinn’s defense never solved the riddle of what to do when things didn’t go according to plan. The recipe for beating the Dallas defense remained the same throughout the campaign, no matter when you played them.
In early season defeats, the defense surrendered 222 yards on the ground to the Arizona Cardinals and 170 to the San Francisco 49ers. Late in the year, they allowed 266 rushing yards in a loss to the Buffalo Bills. Four of the Cowboys' losses saw their defense give up over 100 yards rushing.
When Quinn’s defense got pushed around upfront, he didn’t have any answers to stop the bleeding, and that spilled over into the playoffs, when the Green Bay Packers rushed for 143 yards and three touchdowns.
It’s also a defense that struggled to adjust to teams that used pre-snap motion during the season.
The inability to find answers when the same thing beats your defense over and over was an issue. For as good as the defense was at taking the ball away, Quinn’s failure to adjust to cover his defense's weakness is a reason the Cowboys had another early postseason exit.
That issue could be resolved for the 2024 season as Quinn has moved on to take the head coaching job with the Washington Commanders.
Right: Prescott to Lamb connection
Once the offense began to hit their stride, Prescott and Lamb began to hammer defenses. When McCarthy decided to force-feed Lamb after a bye week discussion, both the QB and WR had record-breaking seasons.
Prescott and Lamb both had career years on their way to being at the top, or near the NFL leaders in every statistical category.
For the first time since Roger Staubach was under center, a Cowboys QB led the league in touchdown passes. Prescott’s 36 scoring tosses were tops in the NFL, the second-most in his eight seasons and he also led all QBs in completion percentage.
Lamb led receivers in catches and yards after the catch. He finished second in yards and first downs while coming in third in touchdown catches and yards per game on his way to breaking the franchise record for catches and yards in a season.
After a slow start, both Prescott and Lamb were All-Pro players who helped carry the offense. There wasn’t a better QB-WR duo in the league this season than Prescott and Lamb.
Wrong: Discipline
New season, same problems for the Cowboys and their lack of discipline. Dallas was second in the league in penalties with 115 infractions but led the league in penalty yards. This was the second time in three years that the team was in the top two for penalties, so it’s fair to say McCarthy’s team has discipline issues.
There were too many instances where the Cowboys made too many costly mistakes and it had an effect on the outcomes of games. In the playoff loss to the Packers, two big violations made things easy for the Packers and extended the opening drive to get an early lead.
The Cowboys continue to be on the wrong side of the whistle under McCarthy.
Right: Aubrey's golden leg
There weren’t many people who bought into Brandon Aubrey as the team's kicker out of training camp, but the Cowboys’ faith was rewarded with one of the best kicking seasons in NFL history. The 28-year-old rookie kicker made his first 35 attempts, which shattered the former record for a rookie by 17 makes, before missing in the last week of the year.
Aubrey wasn’t just making chip shots either, he was 10-10 on kicks over 50 yards, making him one of just three kickers to make all of his attempts from over 50 yards. The impressive season reached its peak when Aubrey became the first kicker in NFL history to make two kicks of 59 yards or more in the same game.
While a great deal of observers were worried about Aubrey, the Cowboys were proven right with an All-Pro year from the former soccer standout.
Wrong: Pollard's slow start
The Cowboys released former running back Ezekiel Elliott in the offseason and turned their backfield over to Tony Pollard as the starter. Pollard was coming off a broken fibula in January and had never been the starter, but the team put the onus on him to be the lead runner, with very little experience behind him.
It didn’t work out. Pollard was still a solid RB, but he wasn’t as efficient or explosive as he’d been when he was spelling Elliott.
Some of his ineffectiveness was likely due to his injury, and some of the problems in the run game can be attributed to the offensive line/scheme that never seemed to work. As Pollard got healthier as the season went on, he looked more like the runner of old but he wasn’t what the Cowboys expected when they used the franchise tag on him at $10.9 million.
Right: Home field advantage
After years of a perceived lack of a home-field advantage, the Cowboys had the first perfect regular season at AT&T Stadium. Their winning streak at home actually reached 15 games after running the table in 2023 and they outscored their opponents by a score of 299-127 at Jerry World this season.
The team averaged over 37 points at home while allowing just two opponents to score 20 or more points. Their team speed and comfortability while playing at home was a big reason for the Cowboys’ success.
Of course, this eventually all went wrong in the end with a blowout home loss in the wild-card round, but no one can accuse the Cowboys of not having a home-field advantage after how they played at AT&T Stadium in 2023.
What do you think went right for the Cowboys during the 2023 season? Share your thoughts with Ben on Twitter @BenGrimaldi.
