The Chargers take the field on Monday night against a Cowboys team whose season suddenly feels like it could be in flux.
After being shellacked by the 49ers on Sunday Night Football last week, Dallas fell to 3-2 with a gauntlet the Bolt, sneaky competitive Rams, and undefeated Eagles on tap.
Here are four reasons to be concerned that the Chargers don’t continue Dallas’ slide down the standings.
Bounceback game
Since 2021, the Cowboys are 9-1 following a loss, with their only defeat coming at the hands of the Raiders in overtime. Even that game required Dallas to commit 14 penalties, including a costly third-down pass interference in overtime, for Vegas to come away victorious.
The reason Dallas tends to avoid embarking on a slide of more than one game is pretty simple: their team oozes talent. Stars are amplified by playing for “America’s Team,” to be sure. Still, Tyron Smith, Zack Martin, CeeDee Lamb, Micah Parsons, and Trevon Diggs are among the league’s best talents and guys like Dak Prescott and DeMarcus Lawrence aren’t far behind. Luckily for the Chargers, Diggs won’t suit up on Monday as he continues to rehab from a torn ACL suffered in practice a few weeks ago.
Los Angeles has historically performed well against Dallas, holding a 4-2 record since 2000, but their weaknesses could play into the Cowboys’ strengths on Monday. The Chargers have struggled to defend the pass, where Dallas has Prescott throwing to Lamb and Brandin Cooks. LA has also had trouble running the ball without Austin Ekeler (due to return this week), which could lead to a pass-heavy script that gives the Cowboys more opportunities to unleash Parsons and Lawrence.
Gelling offensive line
Dallas has only started one game with their intended starting offensive line of Tyron Smith, Tyler Smith, Tyler Biadasz, Zack Martin, and Terence Steele. That game was last week against San Francisco, and the Cowboys didn’t even finish it that way – Biadasz left the game with an ankle injury.
Biadasz has practiced in full in both of Dallas’ sessions this week, so it looks like he’ll be back in the lineup on Monday night. When healthy, this iteration of the Cowboys offensive line isn’t the same caliber as the units widely regarded as the best in the league in the mid-2010s. They’re still capable, however, and facing them with some game action under their belt is a worse proposition than facing the previous versions Dallas has put on the field this season.
With all five starters in, the game plan will likely center around scheming pressure looks for Steele’s matchup. A former undrafted free agent, Steele has grown into a capable but vulnerable at times tackle who should lose reps more often than he wins them against the likes of Khalil Mack or Joey Bosa.
Justin Herbert's finger
Herbert continues to nurse a fractured finger on his non-throwing hand, suffered during an interception return against the Raiders before the bye week. While he’s practiced in full on Thursday and Friday, he’s done so with a glove and splint on his left hand and has not taken a snap from under center.
Herbert said after practice on Friday that he wasn’t concerned about LA’s ability to go under center on Monday night, but I’ll believe that when I see it. Expect a heavy dose of shotgun for Herbert, who showed in the late stages of the Raiders contest that the finger shouldn’t affect him too heavily. However, running the ball out of shotgun may cause some issues, even with Ekeler returning from an ankle injury.
If the run game again can’t get going, it puts more pressure on Herbert to carry the load offensively through the finger issue. Even if it’s not affecting him severely, you’d prefer to ease some of the responsibility off his shoulders and ask him to make easy throws on time rather than Justin Herbert’s trademark throws to save drives. That requires the run game to get off to a good start, which will likely fall on the shoulders of Ekeler in his first game back from an ankle sprain.
Too cute?
One of the main criticisms of Kellen Moore as an offensive coordinator is that he wants to flex a little bit, for lack of a better term. Moore is a creative play-caller and likes to make sure you know it, incorporating trick plays with weeks of buildup into the gameplan and ensuring he calls every play on the call sheet at least once.
Against his former team, the one whose head coach lambasted Moore for wanting to light up the scoreboard rather than keep the ball secure and win games ugly, it’s not too far of a stretch to think Moore wants to peacock a little extra on Monday night. He should – the Chargers offense is drastically outperforming Dallas’ in large part because of Moore’s presence or lack thereof. But that has to have limits.
There’s a world in which Moore draws up a boutique gameplan for Monday’s contest, one full of tricks and gotchas and plays designed to end in him smirking at the opposing sideline. But the worry is that in the process, Moore may get away from what’s worked for LA to this point in the season. Quick game, for example, has largely been effective and should continue to be administered in heavy doses, with Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence bearing down on the pocket. If Moore gets lulled into going bombs away, the Chargers could find themselves behind the 8 ball.
