During the Dallas Cowboys’ 2023 game against the Detroit Lions, safety Dak Prescott almost absorbed it. The Lions defenders swarmed and made contact with the Cowboys’ quarterback in his own end zone.
On third-and-13 with 3:40 left to play in the first quarter, the Lions applied intense pressure.
advertisement
But Prescott eluded would-be tacklers, raced to his right and lofted the ball 41 yards downfield to CeeDee Lamb, who left a Lions defender outstretched as he raced the remaining 51 yards to the end zone.
A 92-yard touchdown run anchored what eventually became a 20-19 Cowboys win.
That could point to the recipe if Dallas wants to upset the Lions, who are three-point favorites at home, on Thursday night.
At its peak, this era of Lions football fostered trickery on offense and aggression on defense to dominate a 15-2 regular season record last year. However, this year’s operation revealed more cracks. Dallas’ offense has shown it can keep up with other, higher-powered operations. So, with its defense continuing to establish an identity centered around stopping the run and dominating the line of scrimmage, can the Cowboys pace the Lions in a way they failed to do last fall when the Lions arrived at AT&T Stadium and hung 47 on a Cowboys team that managed just 9?
advertisement
“I can’t get those 40 points they stuck on us out of my mind,” team owner and general manager Jerry Jones said Tuesday to Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan. “And that hook and side hook they did there on that one pass? That was really embarrassing. So I can’t get that out of my mind.”
“I give them all the respect they have gained over the past years.”
While the Lions earned a lot of respect, they also exposed weaknesses that teams sought to exploit. One of them, the Green Bay Packers, pulled off a victory on Thanksgiving: the Lions’ weakness in the face of explosive plays.
While Detroit ranks 14thy In total defense and 15y In points allowed, teams that fight through their pressure and tight man coverage have a lot to gain. The Lions have allowed 41 passes of 20-plus yards, fifth-most in the NFL, according to TruMedia Sports. The Packers saw that, and torched Lions defenders on five plays of 20-plus yards, including Jordan Love’s touchdown runs to Christian Watson for 51 and Dontayvion Wicks for 22.
advertisement
Can Prescott, with a receiving corps highlighted by Lamb and rookie George Pickens, follow suit?
The Cowboys are ranked 11thy With 37 completions of 20+ yards this season; They ranked sixth with 165 total offensive plays of 10 or more yards.
[Get more Cowboys news: Dallas team feed]
Maybe the Cowboys’ 92 yards in 2023 wasn’t an aberration. Maybe the road map to outplaying the Lions is what can get the result done.
“Lions do it uniquely,” Lamb said of their physicality. “They line up and they don’t care who you got out there. They’ll line up and they’re ready to play like crazy.
advertisement
“It’s going to be a physical game, it’s going to be long, it’s going to be tough. It’s a playoff game, basically.”
Can lions have lamb and pickens at the same time?
Several factors, including the Cowboys’ defense, differentiated Dallas’ ability to manage the Lions in 2023 compared to 2024.
The Prescott-Lamb connection ranks highly.
In the 2023 win, Prescott completed 68.4% of passes for 345 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Lamb finished with 13 catches on 17 targets for 227 yards and a touchdown.
Last year, those numbers dropped to 51.5% completion for 178 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions. Lamb caught just seven of Prescott’s 14 targets for 89 yards and did not score a touchdown.
advertisement
The Cowboys know the physicality from the Lions’ defenders will come. The question is whether they will be able to handle it.
“Knowing which team is coming here or that we’re going to have to go and play and that’s the core element of their identity — we’ve realized the importance of being physical more than ever,” Prescott told reporters this week. “They’re an elite group in the DBs. They’ll make a call to the umpires.” [their physicality] And we as receivers, we have to be quite physical and have the referent call it out, identify the referent, and make sure that he sees that it’s DPI. And you have to be more physical than those guys a lot of times to get that call, and if not, they’re just going to be like, ‘Yeah, he locked him up.’
“So it’s important for us to be at the top of the table physically, off the line and understand that we have to beat the press and the guys.”
The Cowboys faced a similar approach against the Jets and Aaron Glenn, Detroit’s last defensive coordinator, in Week 5. Dallas prevailed 37-22, with Prescott throwing for 237 yards and four touchdowns.
advertisement
On Thanksgiving, against the Kansas City Chiefs, the defensive philosophy was not identical, but once again the team sought pressure on offense and physicality in the secondary to slow down Pickens-Lamb’s punch.
Prescott threw an early interception — then rebounded to throw for 320 yards and two touchdowns. With 200 combined yards from Lamb and Pickens, the Cowboys outgained the Chiefs, 31-28. Officials have clamped down on aggressive secondary play, flagging the Chiefs four times for defensive tackle flags.
Pickens has thrived against press coverage on the outside, totaling 432 yards and two TDs, according to Next Gen Stats. Only Jaxon Smith-Njigba of the Seattle Seahawks averaged more than Pickens’ 3.2 yards per route facing press coverage outside. Meanwhile, the Lions pressured receivers on the second-highest percentage of 37.3% of routes and the third-highest percentage of 38.6% against outside receivers.
Pickens will challenge their discipline. Lamb, who lined up across from Pickens on 80% of the plays, would create his own mismatch concerns.
advertisement
“These guys are two of the best players in the league, and they’re at the top of the league,” Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard told reporters. “They both run the entire route tree. The only thing I will say that’s really different is the physicality with which George Pickens presents himself on the field: huge, huge catch radius, very physical at the point of attack, opening himself up. Whereas CeeDee, he’ll sink ’em at the hips, he’ll go in and out of ’em, he’ll put you in the blender if you’re not right in your leverage, if you don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“They do a really good job of separating them as well, and what I mean by that is there are two opposite ends, which means you have to cover the whole field.”
Cowboys, Lions arrive at prime-time game with no margin for error
The Lions’ performance all season is slightly ahead of the Cowboys’ performance. At 7-5, Detroit currently sits in eighth place in the NFC standings above the 6-5-1 Cowboys in ninth place.
advertisement
But the direction of these teams has split.
While the Lions have won four of their first five games and five of their first seven, they have not won back-to-back games since Sept. 28 and Oct. 5. The Cowboys started the year slowly, thanks to defensive commitments that appear to have stabilized after acquiring star defensive tackle Quinnen Williams at the trade deadline and bringing back several injured players.
The Cowboys are hotter than they have been all season: After failing to win back-to-back games before late November, they are on a three-game winning streak that includes upsets of the reigning champion Eagles and Chiefs last week.
“I don’t think things are really getting better, especially with everyone in the world understanding the situation as much as we all want to be in the playoffs,” Lamb said. “It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be good.”
A win for the Cowboys would put them ahead of the Lions in the NFC playoff race and just a half-game back of the NFC East-leading Eagles. Dallas’ playoff chances will jump from 23 to 41%, according to The Athletic’s playoff simulation. A loss would drop Dallas’ postseason chances to 9%.
advertisement
A Lions win wouldn’t immediately impact Detroit’s standing in the tight NFC North paced by the 9-3 Chicago Bears and 8-3-1 Green Bay Packers. But Detroit’s wild-card case will get stronger, increasing its playoff chances from 30 to 45 percent, according to The Athletic’s simulation. A loss will reduce their chance to 12%.
Sheppard isn’t blinking at the prospect of a postseason berth. The lions are “exactly where we want to be,” he said.
“When we started this year, we had goals and aspirations,” Sheppard said. “All of those goals and aspirations still lie ahead, but now it’s just more of a sense of urgency — which is what it should have always been. But sometimes, we all, it’s human nature, need a little push.
“And I just hope that this serves as a wake-up call for all of us. There is urgency and there is a margin for error that is no longer acceptable.”
advertisement
The Cowboys will arrive in Detroit with the same sense of urgency. They will look to make explosive plays and a skilled midfielder against the blitz for another win that keeps their chances alive.
They know they’ve allowed their exclusion to get too close for comfort. But their road is not over yet.
“We didn’t play good ball early, and now we’re starting to hit our stride,” Prescott said. “We’re starting to figure out who we are not just on offense but on defense and as a team. And yeah, it’s fun. I can tell you that [I’ve] I’ve been on other teams where you’ve started well and at this time of year you’re trying to figure out what you have to do to get back on the horse and get the momentum that we’re doing now.
advertisement
“[Having] Confidence and not only that, the right people in the dressing room who understand where we are, who understand that this is the most important time of the year and they show that, and just their preparation day-to-day and throughout the week is fun.