Cowboys scouting report: Breaking down the Dolphins defensive scheme

In many ways, Mike McCarthy’s second season in Dallas was his first real season, since the 2020 season featured a limited offseason due to the pandemic, losing Dak Prescott for the year, and a whole host of other injuries throughout the season. But in 2021, McCarthy’s Cowboys were looking exactly like what some had hoped when he was hired.

After narrowly losing to the reigning Super Bowl champion Buccaneers, the Cowboys won six in a row, including a win on the road over the Vikings with Cooper Rush making his first career start. The offense, in particular, was red-hot and looking unstoppable. Then came a home appointment with the 4-4 Broncos, a team that had just traded away superstar Von Miller and looked to be ready to move on from third-year head coach Vic Fangio.

The game turned into a blowout loss for the Cowboys. They were shut out in the first three quarters, eventually scoring in the fourth quarter when the Broncos defense was clearly not playing aggressive anymore, to dress up the final score a bit at 30-16. Still, it was an embarrassing loss for Dallas, who came into the game as 10-point favorites and lost by two touchdowns.

A copycat league it certainly is, because Fangio’s style of defense has taken the league by storm. There are 14 teams in the league that currently operate some iteration of the two-deep safety scheme that Fangio has had decades of success with, while even more teams have incorporated elements of the scheme into their own defense in one form or another.

In fact, the Cowboys have faced 10 such teams this year alone, including six games (Cardinals, Chargers, Rams, Eagles x2, Panthers) against defenses coordinated by coaches that have direct links to Fangio in their coaching tree. To say that the Cowboys have seen this defense more often than not would be an understatement. If Fangio caught the Cowboys by surprise in 2021, that won’t be the case this week as he tries to defend an offense now run by McCarthy himself.