FRISCO, Texas — Week 8 of the Dallas Cowboys’ 2023 season possesses a familiar vibe. The Cowboys’ 79 takeaways since 2021 when Dan Quinn became their defensive coordinator, and they drafted linebacker Micah Parsons, are the most in the NFL. Their 16.7 points per game allowed (fourth best in the NFL, 288.7 total yards per game allowed (fifth best in the NFL) and 12 takeaways (tied for the fifth-most in the NFL) all rank inside the top five across the league in 2023. A top-five defense, that’s nothing new.
That vaunted defense put Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford through a blender a season ago when Dallas traveled out to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and left with a punishing 22-10 victory over the host Rams (3-4 in 2023). Parsons, now a two-time first-team All-Pro, had six quarterback pressures and two sacks of Stafford in last season’s meeting. Stafford, who will once again start against the Cowboys in Arlington, Texas, at AT&T Stadium on Sunday, was hit 11 times and sacked five times in the losing effort in 2022.
Parsons knows he will be the center of attention when it comes to who Rams head coach Sean McVay will be focused on neutralizing come Sunday afternoon. Los Angeles did a solid job of containing Pittsburgh Steelers All-Pro outside linebacker T.J. Watt in its 23-17 Week 7 loss as the team held Watt to two quarterback pressures and no sacks.
“It’s always a great challenge,” Parsons said Wednesday when asked about facing Stafford. “Obviously, he’s a Super Bowl champion. He knows how to make all the passes, all the reads. Super dynamic. The record doesn’t show how good they really are. We definitely got our hands full going into this Sunday. … I might see how they block T.J. Watt, but they might handle me a little bit different. That’s all part of the game, that’s just adjusting throughout the game and things like that. I just know I probably got my hands full going into Sunday. … I think Dan has been doing a great job in putting me inside, outside and things like that to make it harder for them [opposing offenses] at times.”
Cooper Kupp stuffed the statsheet per usual with 125 receiving yards and a receiving touchdown on seven catches in the loss last season. He is off to another strong start in 2023 after a hamstring injury caused him to miss the first four games of the season. Kupp’s 295 receiving yards on 17 catches are the sixth most in the league since Week 5, and his 17.4 yards per catch this season are a personal career high.
The new element to this matchup in 2023 is the arrival of fifth-round rookie Puka Nacua, whose 58 catches leads the NFL through the first seven weeks of the season. That made him the first rookie with at least a share of the NFL lead in receptions through seven weeks since Philadelphia Eagles tight end Keith Jackson in 1988. If he catches just one pass on Sunday, Nacua will have sole possession of the record for the most catches through a player’s first eight games in NFL history. When the Cowboys look at Nacua, they see Cooper Kupp 2.0.
“He reminds me of Cooper [Kupp],” Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said Wednesday. “I can see the carryover there in the training and how they play. I’ve been really impressed with his physicality, especially for a young player. Just his play style is what jumps off the film most.”
Nacua’s 752 receiving yards are the third most in the NFL this season behind only Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill (902) and Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown (809), and that start also gives him the second-most receiving yards through seven career games in NFL history, just two behind Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase’s 754 from his rookie year in 2021.
Most receiving yards through first seven career games in NFL history
“It’s tremendous, crazy to be honest,” Cowboys safety Jayron Kearse said Wednesday when asked about Nacua’s historic start to his NFL career as a fifth-round pick. “I say that because you just don’t, you know when guys come into the league you kind of know when Justin Jefferson comes into the league, it’s a guy you’ve heard about at LSU. Ja’Marr Chase, a guy you heard about, and just those types of guys that came in and had early success as young players you knew they can play some ball. For him to just come into this league and do the things he’s been doing is tremendous being that it’s surprising to everybody but him. That’s just the No. 1 thing that surprises me is just because it’s not a guy that you would pinpoint coming into this year that he could possibly win Rookie of the Year. The things that he’s doing is right up to par with doing that and people haven’t figured him out yet.
However, it’s clear that Nacua isn’t some gimmick after seven weeks, at least in the eyes of one of the Cowboys’ top defensive leaders.
“I don’t think it’s really much to figure out, he’s just a hard nosed football player,” Kearse said. “You can see it when he’s blocking, when he gets the ball in his hands after the catch. A lot of times I see on tape when he’s getting targets, he’s covered and he’s just making the catch. So there’s not really much you can coach your players up to do. I guess it’s to knock the ball down because he’s getting covered and he’s still making the catches. So, he’s just doing some tremendous things seven games into his rookie year and he’s already putting up these types of numbers. So, it’s amazing.”
The way McVay goes about scheming both Nacua and Kupp into favorable matchups and looks are sophisticated details under the guise of simplicity. The Rams have lined up in 11 personnel — one running back, one tight end and three wide receivers — on 93% of their offensive snaps, 426 of their 458, this season. No other team is even in the 80th percentile of their snaps in 11 personnel as Shane Steichen’s Indianapolis Colts are the next-closest team at 78.9% of their offensive snaps, 371 of 470 snaps this season. While Los Angeles’ formation usage is relatively stagnant, their movement is not. The Rams utilize motion on 65.1% of their offensive snaps this season, the fourth-highest rate in the NFL, meaning it will be paramount for the Cowboys defense to not get lulled to sleep by the similar looks because one unique motion could spring a big play.
“It doesn’t really change much,” Kearse said of the Rams’ unique reliance on 11-personnel and their effort to make every play look the same. “The communication is going to have to be at the highest level. They move guys around. They put 17 [Nacua] in different spots with motions and jets. Kupp the same way. They put them in different spots, motions and jets. [Wide receiver] Tutu Atwell is a speed guy, they’re going to move him around and try and get him open to create mismatches. It’s not going to change for us, it’s just our communication has to be at a high level.”
“They’re basically saying ‘we’re going to do this, and you just have to stop it,’” Parsons said. “They have been very successful with it. It speaks to who they believe in. They believe in their skill guys, and they believe in what they have.”
Following linebacker Leighton Vander Esch’s neck injury that has him on injured reserve, Kearse has now become the player responsible with having the green dot on his helmet, meaning he is the on-field defensive signal-caller, relaying Quinn’s calls to the rest of his teammates before the snap. It’s a role Kearse has had in the past, so he isn’t phased by resuming it now, but the one area where he can be stretched thin in this responsibility is every now and then in the passing game.
“It [having the green dot] becomes a challenge when I am covering a deep route and then I got to get back to get the call to the guys and running to get it back to them is the biggest challenge, but other than that, it’s not much of a challenge,” Kearse said. “I communicate play-to-play anyways. Just getting the guys the call and once I get it to the linebackers, they’re doing all the communication with the front guys [defensive line]. I just have to get it to somebody and then they’re going to echo the call.”
The Cowboys are in the midst of what stands as the NFL’s longest active home winning streak, winners of 10 in a row at AT&T Stadium, and it will take another raucous effort from the defense to extend the streak to 11 games, which would mark their longest streak since the 1991-92 season, part of their first of three Super Bowl seasons in the 1990s. With Dallas returning home for only its third home game of the season on Sunday against the Rams, there’s a good chance Cowboys fans will be itching to let loose, especially after many of them were unable to during the Texas Rangers’ 9-1 loss against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 2 of the World Series in across the street on Saturday night.
“It gets tough sometimes, especially when the stadium is rocking,” Kearse said of his defensive communication. “I have to put my hands up to my ears to hear the call, but for the most part it gives us a sense of security when it comes down to when our crowd is going crazy and those guys [the offense] can’t communicate. I know it’s definitely a huge advantage with those guys over there trying to communicate and get their plays down with a play clock that’s running. If you can’t get that communication out, that helps us tremendously with the extra five yards that we can gain [on a delay of game penalty], which allows us to play balls to the wall football when they’re in a longer distance.”