Dan Graziano, senior NFL national reporter 1y

Judging NFL Week 4 overreactions: Cowboys stick with Cooper Rush?

NFL, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, Dallas Cowboys, Chicago Bears, Pittsburgh Steelers, Carolina Panthers

Remember three weeks ago, when the Cowboys were in huge trouble?

If you think back hard enough, you can remember. They lost their opener to the Buccaneers, and toward the end of the game they also lost quarterback Dak PrescottĀ for multiple weeks to a thumb injury. The story coming out of Week 1 was, "Cowboys' season is over before it began." Or at least it was supposed to be.

It turns out that was ... well, an overreaction.

Which brings me to this: The Week 4 Overreactions column. With nearly one-quarter of the regular season complete, we now have a decent amount of information about these teams and these players on which to base some real judgments. What was an overreaction after one game probably isn't anymore, if it's been backed up by the past three.

Or in the case of the Cowboys, something that didn't seem like an overreaction in Week 1 turns out to have been a massive one.

Since the Prescott injury, the Cowboys have played the Bengals, the Giants and the Commanders and won all three of those games. They are 3-1, tied with the Giants for second place in the NFC East, one game behind the 4-0 Eagles. (More on that in a moment here.) The 19 points they allowed to Tom Brady and the Bucs in Week 1 are the most any opponent has yet scored against them. Their defense is actually getting better every week. They gave up 17 points in Week 2, 16 in Week 3 and just 10 to Washington in Week 4.

Backup quarterback Cooper Rush, who won a game last year that Prescott had to miss due to injury, has completed 61.8% of his passes and thrown four touchdown passes and no interceptions in the three games he has started so far this year. Basically, since Prescott went down in Week 1, everything has gone right for the Cowboys.

So let's start the Week 4 Overreactions column in Dallas, shall we?

^ Back to Top ^