I’m not sure if Dallas Cowboys pass rusher Micah Parsons is much of a movie watcher, to be honest. I’m not sure if he’s ever seen any of the Batman movies, but there was something he said this week that immediately made me think of one scene, specifically, in “The Dark Knight Rises.”
There’s a point in the movie where Bruce Wayne is a prisoner in the pit. He’s injured and weak, and the only way to get out is to get stronger and better.
After three weeks, it felt like the Cowboys run defense was imprisoned in a pit, too — stuck in a state of alarming vulnerability.
“You can only go up from here, right?” Parsons said on Tuesday. “So when I said we were low, where do you go when you’re at the bottom? You climb, but you’ve got to be willing to climb.”
And perhaps there was no one lower on the Cowboys defense than Mazi Smith, who entered this week as the lowest-rated defensive tackle in the NFL, according to Pro Football Focus’ grades. The former first round pick struggled in his first season and was struggling in the first three games, too. But on a short week, Smith not only began to climb, but he took a giant leap.
Smith was the highest-graded Cowboys defender in Thursday night’s 20-15 win over the New York Giants, according to PFF. He recorded an 88.5 grade, which was also the highest grade of his career. He finished with three tackles, including an impressive tackle for loss to start the second half.
“Shoutout to Mazi, man,” Parsons said after the game. “Mazi was dominant bro. I told you: Mazi just keeps, keeps, keeps just getting better, better and better. I always tell him: it starts with him.”
From both a personal perspective, and from a literal perspective on the Cowboys defense.
Through the first three weeks, it wasn’t just Smith who had struggled. It was the entire defensive line. Smith may have been at the bottom of PFF’s defensive line grades, but veterans Linval Joseph and Jordan Phillips were right there with him. Even Osa Odighizuwa wasn’t too far from them.
“It’s going to be a clear target on us,” Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said about the run defense after the 28-25 loss to Baltimore on Sunday.” And we have to stop it. We’ve got a quick one here, a quick turnaround in New York. So, yeah, it’s our run defense and the attempts on our run offense. We’re clearly not where we need to be right now.”
Poor defensive line play can have a chain reaction on a defense. Linebackers, especially the ones Dallas have, like to play fast and run downhill, like sports cars on an open freeway. Add in traffic, and they can’t play to their full potential — frustratingly so.
On Thursday, linebackers Eric Kendricks and DeMarvion Overshown combined for 21 tackles. They played downhill and fast, and the defensive line earns credit for enabling it.
Ultimately, in defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer’s defense, that’s how things are supposed to go. It’s about each player doing their part — or, as the Cowboys say, their 1/11 — to ensure that the collective succeeds together. It’s about being cohesive.
“So being a d-tackle in this system, you have to be selfless,” Joseph, a longtime player for Zimmer, said before the start of the season. “If you’re selfish, it won’t work for you. You just have to be able to give it your all, help others, and let plays come to you.”
It’s not about, in the words of Parsons after last week’s loss, trying to be a superhero.
“I think right now we’ve got people just trying to be Superman,” Parsons said on Sunday. “We don’t need no Supermans at all.”
Instead, maybe they needed a Batman.
