After crumbling against Jaxson Dart's mobility, Dallas prepares for Jayden Daniels as Quinnen Williams warns of the dangerous dual-threat challenge looming in a must-win divisional showdown.
To put it politely, the Dallas Cowboys struggled to contain New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart in their 28-20 Week 1 loss.
To put it more harshly, "America's Team'' made the second-year QB look like Troy Aikman and Steve Young all rolled into one unstoppable force.
Yes, Dart is a known dual-threat quarterback. But he burned Dallas as a passer and he broke contain several times and picked up big yards on the ground as well, ending with 54 rushing yards on 11 runs.
Well, now in Week 2 along comes Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels, who, you could argue, is a better and more dangerous runner than Dart.
So, the Cowboys, after getting easily beaten by Dart and his arm and his legs and even his brain, face a quarterback in Daniels ... who I'll argue is a consistenly bigger, better threat to a bad defense.
And the Cowboys - based on their last 18 games (17 last year still count, you know) - remain a "bad defense.''
After 31 yards on five carries in Week 1's loss to Philly, Daniels demonstrated once again that he can be a big threat on Sundays.
Also worth nothing from that loss: The rest of the Commanders offense seems pretty capable, too, as coach Dan Quinn's bunch as they were a two-point conversion away from tying in Philadelphia late in the fourth quarter.
Cowboys team leader Quinnen Williams he knows the challenges Daniels and Washington present ... and offers up in essence a two-word scouting report.
"He's extremely dangerous," Williams said. "They got two receivers over there that's really good, and they got a run game that's good also. So I just think learning from what we did last week, growing, executing, and communicating is a big thing for this week."
"Extremely dangerous.'' That's a mouthful.
We have heard from Dallas head coach Brian Schottenheimer and a handful of players stating that they are confident that they can improve on what was put on film last week.
In terms of slowing scary two-way QBs, they'll get their chances, as Dart and Daniels are one thing as dual-threat quarterbacks ... while in Week 3, Dallas faces the Ravens' Lamar Jackson.
To me, that looks like a gigantic "oh-oh.'' So whatever improvements that need to be made, it sure would be timely to start making them now.
"It's a big learning curve," Williams said of some of the new wrinkles under rookie defensive coordinator Christian Parker. "So, a lot of stuff that we did during Week 1, we can fix, we can grow from it, we can learn from it, and just keep going throughout this season and keep getting better."
