The Sunday Night Football game between the Los Angeles Rams and Dallas Cowboys provided some great storylines to cap off a great first Sunday of football. It was the first game played in the brand new, state of the art SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California—albeit under interesting circumstances because there were no fans. The Rams wanted to come out victorious in the very first game. Consider the mission accomplished. However, it was the Cowboys, not the Rams, who entered the year with the usual optimistic expectations and now have some questions to answer.
Everything started out status quo for Dallas, and interestingly enough, it ended in the same fashion. Starting right tackle La'el Collins was placed on IR due to neck and hip issues, so the Cowboys started undrafted free agent Terence Steele out of Texas Tech at right tackle. I wonder if he ever imagined that when he went undrafted and signed with his hometown team that he'd be starting the very first game.
Ezekiel Elliott was good as usual, rushing for 96 yards and a touchdown. Dak Prescott played solid and took care of the football for the most part. He engineered the potential game-winning scoring drive after not generating much offense in the final stretch of the quarter. His potential game-altering throw and beautiful catch by Michael Gallup that was called back for offensive pass interference would have easily placed them in field goal range.
Defensively, the biggest storyline for me was the return of Aldon Smith. Smith has always been a talented pass-rusher with some major character concerns. He’s the fastest player in NFL history to 30 sacks, which he did in approximately 27 games. He had been out of football for five years as he battled several legal and substance abuse issues. He was all over the place in his first game and led the team in tackles with 11. He also recorded his first sack of the season and added another pressure. His pressure forced Goff to throw a tipped pass that was intercepted by Chidobe Awuzie. Clearly, Smith didn’t forget how to play football in his time away.
The final takeaway was the glaring hole at safety for the Cowboys. It left me wondering if Stephen Jones would be calling Earl Thomas’ agent in the morning.
As for Los Angeles, I wanted to see how the Rams’ offensive line held up against the Dallas defensive line. The Rams came out and started second-round pick Cam Akers at running back for their outside zone offense. He ended the night with 39 yards on 14 carries. From the outset, it was clear that Sean McVay wanted to keep the Cowboys’ pass-rush off balance by mixing in play-action, misdirection, and “Boots” to begin the game.
After all the offseason talk about the regression of the Rams’ offensive line in 2019, it was evident that their goal was to come out and be physical up front. The first drive was likely scripted and went 75 yards for a touchdown. Malcolm Brown came out motivated and, although he didn’t start, he ended the night with a career-high 79 rushing yards (110 in total) and two touchdowns.
Robert Woods had half of his six catches for 105 yards on the initial drive. It was also fitting that Aaron Donald recorded the very first sack in SoFi stadium. He finished with one sack and four pressures.
All in all, it was great to see the Rams’ offensive line handle themselves well against the Cowboys’ pass-rushers and walk out of their brand new stadium with a victory.
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