News: BTB: Cowboys News: Things we learned, latest from Ezekiel Elliott, and Dan Bailey’s status

As Lawrence was able to notch another sack against the 49ers — a filthy arm-over move against a very good left tackle in Joe Staley — Irving was constantly disruptive from the interior defensive line once again, as he added another sack in his second game back from suspension.

With two legitimate pass rush threats who must garner attention from opposing offenses, the Cowboys pass rush is the most effective that it has been in Rod Marinelli’s tenure as the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator. In six games, the Cowboys have 21 total sacks — more than half of their total (36) from all of last season.

With Sean Lee returning, the youngsters in the secondary playing well and the pass rush ramping up pressure on opposing quarterbacks, the Cowboys defense is climbing toward competency after being one of the worst units in the NFL after five weeks.
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Sunday, the return of Sean Lee and Anthony Hitchens meant that for all intents and purposes, the Cowboys finally had their best 11 on the field at the same time for the first time this season. Chidobe Awuzie could still be added to that group when he gets right, but we had not seen David Irving and Sean Lee on the same field until Sunday. There is no question that Irving is breaking out and Demarcus Lawrence is balling out in combination like we have never seen. The team's sack output - now at 21 - is off the charts compared with the rest of the team's post-Wade Phillips/DeMarcus Ware era. And it continues to rise at a very promising rate. Lawrence at 9.5 sacks is now just a half-sack behind the league leader, Calais Campbell with 10. Lawrence is already at his career high and has had a sack in every single game so far this season. Irving looks even more disruptive in 2017 than he did in 2016 when he led the team in splash plays. He is 24 years old and just finding his powers. If you have two defensive players at this level doing this well, it seems fair to feel like opposing passers are going to be under duress quite a bit.
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The Cowboys had the best offensive line in the league last season, but they lost two starters this offseason: Ronald Leary signed with the Broncos in free agency, and Doug Free retired. La’el Collins took over for Free at right tackle. Jonathan Cooper is starting at left guard, Leary’s old spot.

It takes time for the line to develop the chemistry it needs after offseason changes. The play has been inconsistent this year as a result. That wasn’t the case on Sunday. On Elliott’s second touchdown, Cooper and Collins in particular — as well as tight end Jason Witten — blocked aggressively to create a clear lane for Elliott right up the middle.

While the bulk of the yards on the ground came from Elliott, blocking helped the run game as a whole absolutely kill it against the Niners. The team ended up with 265 yards total on the ground.
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Tremendous effort by the Cowboys to block on the edge. Coaches will tell you that if you’re going to have success in the running game, outside blocking is usually the difference. There were several plays where the ball broke in the open field and there were two or three blocks by wide receivers that allowed the play to gain further yards.
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Beathard came in last week against Washington in relief of Brian Hoyer and almost brought the 49ers back. There was no such magic today. Dallas harassed Beathard all night, not only with the five sacks but with three addditional hits and a couple pass deflections. For all of the warts Rod Marinelli’s defense has shown, they came to play coming out of the bye week.

Beathard threw for almost the exact same amount of yards as Prescott did, 235 to 234. However, Prescott averaged just under 9.4 yards an attempt on his 25 throws.

In the last two games, Dallas allowed Jared Goff and Aaron Rodgers to own them in the passing game, giving up 476 yards and five passing touchdowns.
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A settlement would benefit Elliott and his team, Wallach says, because it could allow him to miss fewer games than he would otherwise. It would also score a key incremental victory for the NFL Players Association as it fights a disciplinary process it believes to be unfair.

"Even if [Elliott] were to win the federal court lawsuit, the remedy is another [league arbitration hearing]," Wallach says. "Now that he has the maximum leverage that he may ever have in this case, right now could be the best possible time to strike a settlement where he could shave games off of his suspension."
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A settlement would benefit Elliott and his team, Wallach says, because it could allow him to miss fewer games than he would otherwise. It would also score a key incremental victory for the NFL Players Association as it fights a disciplinary process it believes to be unfair.

"Even if [Elliott] were to win the federal court lawsuit, the remedy is another [league arbitration hearing]," Wallach says. "Now that he has the maximum leverage that he may ever have in this case, right now could be the best possible time to strike a settlement where he could shave games off of his suspension."
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