National Football League

Cowboys lean on defense to beat Saints, but did the win prove Dallas is back?

Updated Dec. 3, 2021 3:56 p.m. ET

After back-to-back losses, the Dallas Cowboys were able to lasso their way back into the win column with a resounding 27-17 victory over the New Orleans Saints on Thursday Night Football.

The performance was about as convincing as they come from a defensive perspective, as the Cowboys' protective troupe stifled N.O. with a smothering effort, collecting four interceptions and holding Sean Payton's group to less than 300 yards as a collective.

And the fact that defense was the story of the night isn't a particularly surprising reality.

Dallas was without its head coach on the sideline for the road affair, as Mike McCarthy watched the televised broadcast with the rest of America due to COVID protocols.

The man who received the call to action in his place was defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, who was able to join in on the on-field celebrations following his squad's defensive surges, as opposed to phoning down for communication from the coaching booth.

Quinn's creative wealth of knowledge on that side of the ball, plus his familiarity with the opponent (Quinn coached against the Saints for years as Atlanta's head coach in the early 2010s), fused together to create a splendid winning recipe.

But while Dallas' ability to beat a depleted Saints squad was clear, its ability to sustain success in the long run has analysts deadlocked in disagreement.

Skip Bayless' evaluation of the Cowboys' performance skewed largely negative.

"I thought so much of my football team going into this year," Bayless said Friday morning on "Undisputed."

"I told you 12-5 at one point when they got to 6-1," Bayless told Shannon Sharpe. "I said, ‘I’m looking at 13-4.' So I'm going to judge them on that kind of curve. Scale of 1-10, how impressed was I? I am a two! However you want to disqualify the win, though, you can't disqualify 8-4. All I know is, they took care of business."

Since that 6-1 start, the 'Boys are 2-3 in their last five, with two of those losses coming at home.

In those first seven games, the Cowboys averaged 32.1 per game, but over the last five, they are putting up 25.6 per game, thanks in large part to a 43-3 rout of Atlanta. That game aside, they are averaging 21.3 points in the last four.

Partially for that reason, Sharpe was dually unimpressed with Dallas on Thursday.

"I think they beat a very bad team," he said. "We've seen this over the last few weeks. This team is getting worse and worse."

Colin Cowherd, on the other hand, was much more lenient toward Dallas' shortcomings. He cited the trying nature of December football as reasoning to impart optimism upon the 'Boys.

"They're winning their division, they won by 10 on the road, missing staff, against a really good defense and a Hall of Fame coach," Cowherd said on "The Herd."

"They got four turnovers –– there's nothing to complain about. You ever notice how pretty September and October football is? It gets uglier in December. Backups, fatigue, guys are hurt, throw in COVID. Dallas is not as good as the team that was 6-1. They're not nearly as bad as the team that got housed by Denver. They don't feel like a Super Bowl team to me, but they feel like a team that could upset."

It was ugly, but as Bayless said, it was a victory nonetheless.

And Dallas is going to have bigger fish to fry if their hopes for playoff glory are to stay alive. Their quarterback knows that and is aware of the things he needs to improve upon for the betterment of his team.

"It's frustrating on my part," Dak Prescott said of his Thursday showing.

Prescott wasn't bad — but he wasn't good either.

He went 26-for-40 passing for 268 yards, a TD and an INT, good for a 79.0 passer rating. And in his last three starts, Prescott has three TDs and three INTs.

Dallas has gone 1-2 in that span.

"I was trying to do it [all] in one play and I can't do that. We can't do that as an offense. We've just got to stay within it and allow that play to come."

Dallas could still prove hard to beat if it continues to get defensive performances like the one it did on Thursday. But to beat the best, its offense will need to be at its best.

And what awaits the Cowboys in Week 14? A road contest against division rival Washington, a team on a three-game winning streak, holding opponents to 18.3 points per game over the last three.

Time for Dallas to cowboy up.