ARLINGON, Texas — Lurking in the tall grass behind headliners like Micah Parsons, Randy Gregory and Trevon Diggs has been veteran cornerback Jourdan Lewis, but the Atlanta Falcons found out the hard way that Lewis must be accounted for as well. Quiet as it’s kept, the 26-year-old is having the best season of his NFL career thus far, and his leadership helped set the tone for the Dallas Cowboys in Week 10 — beginning to end — as they plucked the birds in a 43-3 shellacking at AT&T Stadium.
Lewis landed his second interception of the season in the fourth quarter on Sunday (a number that would be higher if not for penalties elsewhere on the field that negated at least one INT already), but his impact was felt far before then against the Falcons.
He delivered back-to-back pass deflections on third and fourth down in the first quarter, when the Cowboys were nursing a 7-3 lead and the Falcons were trying to mount a drive that might’ve given them a 10-7 lead over Dallas, assuming they finished it with a touchdown. At the very least, Atlanta was hoping to extend the drive and begin the task of tiring out the Cowboys defense, even if the drive ended in a field goal, seeing as the field goal would’ve shrank the lead to just one point and — more importantly — started to create some flashbacks of what happened on the same field one week prior.
The Cowboys couldn’t get their defense off of the field against the Broncos, and defensive coordinator Dan Quinn harped on the allowed third down conversion rate all week in practice. Lewis and Co. heard him loud and clear, and his two critical PBUs couldn’t have sent a stronger message to start the game on Sunday:
“Coach [Quinn] talked about the energy we needed to play with and the standard that we needed to play to,” Lewis told media after the game. “I feel like we had that going with the first drive and continued throughout the rest of the game. It was just playing up to the standard. … I just took it one play at a time and understood that each play was a different sequence.
“So, you’ve just go to play the game like that, in the moment. That’s what we did all game and you saw the results.”
The Cowboys defense painted a masterpiece with the Falcons shattered hopes used as paint against a green canvas that was primed for it in Week 10, seeing as Dallas had no choice but to send a message to the league about who they really are. They achieved their goal, and in spectacular fashion, aided largely by Lewis and a secondary that grabbed three interceptions — Trevon Diggs and Anthony Brown reeling in the other two — along with 10 pass break-ups.
Matt Ryan couldn’t find a rhythm in Dallas if they rolled a drum set onto the field.
“It’s a group full of dogs,” said Lewis of the Cowboys secondary. “We love playing with each other. We love competing with each other. You can see from A.B. to Trevon, to all of us, we’re just competing against ourselves, trying to get better and dominate.”
In fairly short order, the Cowboys have gone from being one of the worst in the league at takeaways to the best on any given week (most weeks, statistically speaking), but don’t go expecting Lewis to wave that tidbit around like a championship banner. For him, as established by Quinn in 2021, that should be the floor and not the ceiling.
“It’s just the standard,” Lewis said. “I mean, that’s what we’re supposed to do. That’s supposed to happen. We’re supposed to take the ball away, fly around on defense and play how we did today.
“That’s what we planned to do in March OTAs. Just go out there, fly around and understand that we were building something special.”
If Lewis and Brown can continue to complement Diggs with their play at cornerback, then special is exactly what this season will continue to be for the Cowboys.
