Finally reaching our potential, or overachieving?

[TellerMorrow34]

Offensively this team is finally showing what it can do with good play calling and a serious committment to a dominate running attack. They're making it very difficult on defenses to decide who they're going to try and take out of the game.

And if T-Will continues to step up big like last night they're going to force teams to quit doubling Dez as well.

 

[SDCowboy]

The offense is showing its potential. The defense is wildly overachieving...and I mean that as a compliment to the players on our D. Those guys have shown serious heart.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

Reaching potential. Games like last night shouldn't be so rare. We have absolutely elite talent on offense, and yes we had it last year too. Our defense has pretty average talent, but the Saints won the Superbowl with a great O and a pretty average defense that benefited from playing with big leads every week. IF Tony is healthy and looks like he did last night, this team should be good, barring a bunch of bad injuries (we've been very healthy so far).

The people who said we had horrible talent were way, way, off. I never understood what they were thinking. It's not very good on defense, but last I checked offense counts, too.

 

[Craig]

To this point i think its potential, which is to say they havent been beating themselves when playing opponents they should win against. The teams they have beaten arent good though.

 

[JohnnyHopkins]

They are achieving on offense, probably overachieving a little on defense. Better coordinators on offense and defense have been the key pick-ups this last offseason.

 

[jazzcat22]

Offense showing it's potential, Defense starting to gel, but overachieving a bit, but not as much as people think. Will only get better.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

If Marinelli really is a genius, im buying in. Our defense may be playing over its head right now, but if we keep controlling the game with our offense we are a playoff team.

I have always felt like the Defense we had in the 90s was just decent, not great. I always felt as if they were able to do things, in large part, because the Offense controlled the game. Much easier to play Defense when your well rested and you know you are playing with an offense that is going to eat clock and score points consistently. I kinda think that this is what we are seeing now, to an extent.

JMO

 

[InDakWeTrust]

Quick name some players off of those Bears defenses that were all world..Urlacher, Briggs, Tillman and Tommie Harris for one season? The rest were mostly cast offs knowing their job and executing. Plus, forcing turnovers gives our offense extremely short fields. You can call me McDonald's because I'm loving it.

 

[xwalker]

Well, which is it fellas?

I posted before the season that the Cowboys defense has reasonable NFL talent at most starting positions. They don't have Star players, but when you look at each individual position, the talent is reasonable.

 

[DFWJC]

I don't think we had the horses to be much better than we have been the last 3-4 years.
So "finally reaching our potential" is probably not the case because the potential was not fully there until now.

Certainly having that bad-*** Oline is making a huge difference--helping the run game, making the pass game more efficient, and resting defense.
Plus, the defense trotted out a bunch of guys from Walmart the last couple of years.

I will say Marinelli is pulling more out of this group...so far.. than expected. But they are slightly healthier too. And a second year in a new scheme should help.
Looking forward to getting Lawrence in the mix and Spencer healthier.

 

[Deep_South]

Of course our offense is the big story, but our D is getting turnovers, and I think that is the difference. The Saints put up some big numbers in offense last night (438 net yards), but they couldn't really capitalize on it because we took the ball away a few times - with several near-misses - and the TOP was roughly 35-25 in our favor. If we keep running the ball successfully and getting turnovers, it is going to be a fun season. Actually, it is already a fun season.

 

[The Natural]

Offense is this good, D is probably over achieving

Agree with this assessment. Offensively this has to be the expectation, you have the o-line, you have the RB, you have the receivers, there is no excuse to be made.