ESPN Analyst Apologizes for Disparaging Cowboys Before Vikings Game
Dallas sent a loud message to the rest of the league Sunday with a dominant showing against Minnesota on the road.
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Add Ryan Clark to the growing list of people entering Week 12 with a different attitude about the Cowboys in the wake of their blowout road victory over the Vikings on Sunday.
Coming into Week 11, the ESPN analyst and former safety sounded off on the Cowboys’ chances at victory coming off a tough loss to the Packers, and predicted the defense would have issues containing Dalvin Cook and Justin Jefferson. As it turns out, Dallas would do everything but struggle en route to securing a 40–3 win, and holding Minnesota to less than 200 total yards.
Needless to say, the Cowboys’ dominance may have been enough to make a believer out of Clark, who apologized to defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, Micah Parsons, Trevon Diggs and Co. for doubting them on Monday’s Get Up.
“I was wrong,” Clark admitted. “I am extremely sorry because what you did was you looked at the film and you said, ’You know what, you’re going to have to beat me doing things that you can’t do.”
After praising Parsons and Diggs for leading the charge, Clark then took it a step further by telling the world he believed the win did more than just boost Dallas in the standings.
“I thought it was great by the Dallas Cowboys in the fact of the way that they schemed and the timely ways that they dialed up their coverages, but more importantly, they ran, they hit, and they were not scared. They stepped on this field to prove a point and that point was proven,” Clark said.
Clark’s moment of clarity sounded much different than his comments in the lead-up to the game when he suggested Cook, who’s ranked sixth in the NFL in rushing yards, would destroy the Cowboys after they gave up over 200 rushing yards to the Packers in Week 10. Appearing on Get Up on Friday, Clark called stopping Cook a “conundrum” before saying the Cowboys were “in all heaps of trouble defensively if they think they can stop the Minnesota Vikings.”
“They better just score a whole lot of points, cause you stack the box, 18 [Justin Jefferson] gonna get 200. You play with the light box, Dalvin Cook gonna get 200. I am interested to see what Dan Quinn does,” he said.
While some Cowboys fans may argue 40 points wasn’t enough, coach Mike McCarthy’s squad definitely sent quite the message to Clark and any other doubters by snapping the Vikings’ seven-game winning streak and handing them their second L of the year.
Cook finished the day with 72 yards on 11 carries while Jefferson was held to three receptions for 33 yards. Kirk Cousins, coming off a season-best 357-yard outing in last week’s stunning road win over the Bills, completed 12-of-23 pass attempts for a season-low 105 yards, and took a season-high seven sacks.
Meanwhile, the Cowboys’ offense accumulated 458 total yards, their best output of the season thus far. Dak Prescott recorded 276 yards and two touchdowns, and running backs Tony Pollard (189 scrimmage yards, two TDs) and the returning Ezekiel Elliott (42 rush yards, two TDs) delivered in the ground game.
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