|
LONDON -- Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant seems to be taking a liking to London. “Actually I was just telling some of the guys that I don’t know if it’s London or the air. I’m flying,” Bryant said. “Everybody else is flying around, too. I got a little bit of extra juice.” Maybe Bryant needed a little international travel to get re-energized. He has touchdown catches in each of his past two games, but he has just five catches for 45 yards. That is the lowest two-game yardage total for Bryant since a three-week span as a rookie in 2010, when he caught four passes for 22 yards in three games. It is the lowest catch total in a two-game span since 2011, when he had four catches in games against the Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles.  “Check this out: I can only control what I can control,” Bryant said. “You watch the same tape that I watch, and I’m going to keep on doing that and when it comes my way, I’m going to try to make the most out of it.”
Bryant was held in check last Sunday by Arizona Cardinals cornerback Patrick Peterson, who held him to his two catches until the final 1:50 of the game. Two weeks ago, the Washington Redskins' pressure, as well as the coverage, kept Bryant to just three catches for 30 yards. From one No. 88 to another, Michael Irvin thinks he has a solution. “They’re doing things to take Dez out of the game plan, and you’ve got to get him back in the game plan,” Irvin said. “The thing is there are ways and things that I would like to see us try to do. Maybe a bunch receiver setup sometimes, and go off those bunch sets because it’s impossible to focus on one guy in a bunch. “But a lot of times, Dez is getting the old Bobby Taylor coverage and the guys on TV say, ‘Oh, Dez is one-on-one.’ Dez is not one-on-one. They have a safety buzzed over. The linebacker runs out. But that being said, you still have to find ways to get him open and get him involved because it changes the game. Don’t ever allow a defense to dictate to you who they can take out of the game.” The slump has come at a bad time for the Cowboys, but Jason Garrett offers up a simple solution. “I just think the overall execution of our offense needs to be better,” he said. “Teams have been trying to defend the run against us all year long, a lot of guys down around the line of scrimmage. I think we’ve done a really good job staying with it, being persistent, and as the game wears on, doing some positive things in the running game. Similarly in the passing game, we’re best when we’re balanced, so when they’re playing some run fronts, you’ve got to keep running it and having success there, but you’ve also got to chase them out of it by throwing it, and Dez has been a huge part of that, obviously. Last week we weren’t quite as clean throwing the football, and hopefully we’ll get back to that this week.”
|
