After three weeks of darkness, the Dallas Cowboys (4-3) finally found the light at the end of the tunnel, dominating the division rival Philadelphia Eagles (3-4) in a 37-10 blowout Sunday night.

During the three-game losing streak, whether it was injuries, penalties or turnovers, everything that could go wrong seemingly did. Against the Eagles, however, it was the exact opposite, as the Cowboys dominated all four quarters of action at AT&T Stadium.

The Cowboys finished with 402 total yards, but it could have been much more if the offense didn’t opt to take its foot off the pedal with the game out of hand in the second half. The Eagles, thought to have one of the best run defenses in the NFL, struggled to stop Ezekiel Elliott on the ground and couldn’t do much to slow Dak Prescott through the air.

The Cowboys’ defense, on the other hand, did an excellent job creating and taking advantage of turnover opportunities while also employing effective third-down defense – Philadelphia finished 3 for 9 on third downs.

The win means the Cowboys enter their bye week with an important one-game lead in the NFC East and an undefeated divisional record (3-0).

With that in mind, let’s dive into a few things gleaned from Dallas’ dominant performance:

Kellen Moore uses deception, great play design and excellent play-call sequencing to get the offense off to a fast start

After three weeks of slow starts and frustrating performances by the offense, the Cowboys opted to use deception in a variety of forms to get back on track.

After getting the ball with a short field, offensive coordinator Kellen Moore called a nifty triple option, set up by deceptive motion, to get the Cowboys a touchdown on their initial drive of the game -- the first time they’ve done that all season:

Tavon Austin got shifty on his way to the crib 😤😤 @Tayaustin01 pic.twitter.com/Ve7JKPLRyr — The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) October 21, 2019

Here, they put Tavon Austin in an orbit return motion where he feints as if he’s going to come across the formation behind the quarterback, before returning outside to be Prescott’s pitch man on the triple option.

Once the ball is snapped, Prescott first executes a zone read with Tony Pollard, reading the outside linebacker (No. 54). If the linebacker stays home, Prescott hands the ball to Pollard just like a normal inside zone run. However, if the linebacker crashes -- as he does here -- Prescott transitions into a speed option with Austin as the pitch man.

On the speed option, Prescott’s read is very similar to the zone read. If the read man -- the filling safety (No. 23) – sticks to Austin, then Prescott is supposed keep the ball and get vertical for positive yards. If the read man crashes on Prescott as he does here, the quarterback is supposed to pitch the ball to Austin, whose deceptive motion granted him a ton of space to work with.

From there, all Austin had to do was make one defender miss, which he did with a beautiful cut inside to take advantage of Orlando Scandrick’s over-pursuit and create the space necessary to navigate to the end zone.

This was a great example of the Cowboys using deceptive tactics to take advantage of Scandrick’s tendency to get lazy when mirroring a receiver’s motion, as it enabled them to get the ball to one of their most dynamic playmakers with a ton of space to create.

For their third touchdown of the first half, the Cowboys opted to use a more traditional form of deception to put the ball in the end zone – a play-action bootleg with Blake Jarwin leaking into the flats after feinting a block (above clip).

The play-action bootleg was the perfect play call to take advantage of the Eagles selling out to stop the run on the goal line.

When the Cowboys reached the goal line earlier in the game, they opted to pound the ball into the end zone using heavy personnel from an I-formation. So, when the Cowboys reached the goal line again and aligned in the same exact formation and used the same exact pre-snap motion as the last time they were there, the Eagles expected run.

Consequently, when Prescott executed the play-action, the Eagles bit – and bit HARD – on the play fake, leaving Jarwin wide open for the easy pitch and catch for the touchdown.

This was a great example of Moore creating easy scoring opportunities through effective sequencing of his play calls.

Later on, Moore dialed up a deep shot to Amari Cooper to put the Cowboys in scoring range at the end of the first half.

Amari Cooper sends Rasul Douglas to another world with his patented sluggo.



my god, amari pic.twitter.com/5lNrOmoiTT — Austin Gayle (@PFF_AustinGayle) October 21, 2019

On this play, the deception came in the form of Cooper’s double move – a sluggo (slant-n-go) route. Cooper did an outstanding job of selling the slant with his eyes and hips before redirecting back outside and upfield on the go route. Eagles cornerback Rasul Douglas (No. 32) bit hard on the slant route, enabling Cooper to create a ton of separation down the sideline.

To his credit, Prescott couldn’t have thrown a better ball, hitting Cooper in stride before the safety could get over to affect the pass.

Utilizing deception, great play design and effective play sequencing, Moore was able to aid the Cowboys’ offense by creating easy big-play and scoring opportunities in the first half.

DeMarcus Lawrence silences the haters

After being taken to school by Sam Darnold and the New York Jets’ offense, the Cowboys’ defense needed its star players to step up. With criticism mounting over his slow start production-wise, DeMarcus Lawrence quieted his haters against the Eagles, finishing with four tackles, one for loss, a sack and a forced fumble.

Coming into this meeting with zero sacks against the Eagles on his career ledger, Lawrence executed his best move – the euro cross chop – to beat Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson for a first-quarter sack:

On this play, Lawrence is aligned at his usual left defensive end spot with an outside shade over Johnson.

After the ball is snapped, Lawrence does an excellent job of using deceptive footwork to give himself better access to Johnson’s outside edge.

Johnson is one of the most athletic offensive tackles in the league, so it’s almost impossible to beat him to his outside edge with speed. He’s simply too quick, showing great capability to cut defenders off before they can flatten or to run them past the apex of the quarterback’s drop.

Therefore, it’s incredibly important to utilize some sort of deception to slow or redirect Johnson’s feet, because if it’s a race to the intersection point between the tackle’s pass set and the pass rusher’s path to the quarterback, Johnson will win every time.

By initially flashing inside with a hard inside step before expanding back outside (euro step), Lawrence got Johnson to stop his feet, gaining access to the outside track to the pocket.

From there, all it took was a swift cross-chop club to knock Johnson’s outside hand down, giving Lawrence free access to the outside edge to bend the corner and flatten to the quarterback.

Pay attention to Lawrence’s hands as he turns the corner.

First, he does a great job of covering Johnson’s elbow with his outside hand after the cross chop. This prevents Johnson from retracing his hand and latching back onto Lawrence’s frame.

Second, Lawrence does a great job of using his hands in flattening to the quarterback. By hanging onto Johnson’s outside arm while turning the corner, Lawrence is able to flatten his angle to the pocket, putting himself in position to knock the ball free on his way to twisting Wentz to the ground, causing a fumble. If Lawrence doesn’t hang onto that outside arm, he may have drifted just out of arm’s reach of the football, which could have prevented the forced fumble.

Lawrence’s impact on the game was felt beyond his ability to rush the passer, as he was outstanding in run support for most of the night as well. He did a great job of using active hands to keep himself clean, which allowed him to be effective in pursuing down the line of scrimmage to make a few stops.

Overall, it was an impressive and much-needed performance from the preeminent talent on the Cowboys’ defense. Despite playing through a myriad of injuries against a team that’s had his number in the past, Lawrence put together one of his best performances of the season, helping elevate the play of the defense.

Maliek Collins makes a positive impact vs. the run

During the Cowboys’ three-game losing streak, Maliek Collins struggled mightily against the run. Even though he was still an effective pass rusher, he did a poor job of recognizing blocks and holding his gap when defending the run.

He wasn’t perfect against the run Sunday night, but Collins was able to beat some blocks and make some positive, impactful plays, the most impressive of which came in the third quarter:

Historically, teams have been very successful running trap plays to take advantage of Dallas’ aggressive, upfield style of play.

Not today.

In the clip above, Collins does an outstanding job of recognizing the trap block, allowing him to cross the trap blocker’s face with a rip move before getting square to the line of scrimmage, clogging the running back’s alley to the second level and bringing him down for the stop at the line of scrimmage.

Collins also displayed his ability to defeat a block to penetrate to the backfield, utilizing an effective arm-over move to beat a block and make a tackle for loss – the type of play that is necessary from a defensive tackle who struggles to hold his ground at the point of attack.

Ultimately, Collins isn’t going to be the type of defensive tackle who is going to stack and shed blocks or hold his ground consistently against double-teams when defending the run, but he can be a disruptive force when he recognizes blocks while using his quickness and effective hand technique to disrupt the backfield.

Enjoy this post? More film studies:

-- Why DeMarcus Lawrence isn’t playing as poorly as his sack total suggests

-- 3 things we learned from the Cowboys’ loss to the Jets, including why Dak isn’t the problem or solution

-- What’s wrong with the Cowboys’ run defense? The issues span multiple levels

Twitter: @JohnOwning