Cowboys Film Room: New blood in Dallas secondary

Awuzie was thrown at just three times in this game and all three plays resulted in incomplete passes. The first one we are going to look at was easily his most impressive. The receiver (Josh Doctson) was able to out-leap Awuzie, but he was able to pry away the ball.  Other than actually going up and high-pointing the ball, Awuzie played this as well as possible.

Cornerbacks aren’t going to be able to jump every pass, especially in this defense that relies heavily on zone coverage. But when zone corners get beat, they have to challenge catches and make tackles. What I love about Awuzie is that he’s always digging at the ball. Like on the play above, Doctson gets his hands on the pass, but once again, Awuzie is able to knock it out of his possession. This goes down as a “drop” for Doctson, but it’s actually a better play by Awuzie to prevent a big gain.

With Awuzie’s performance on Thursday night, you can guarantee that the team will continue to play him on the outside for the final four games of the season. He and likely Jourdan Lewis will be team’s outside cornerbacks and Anthony Brown will assume slot duties until the return of Orlando Scandrick.

For the most part, the cornerback position is settled. The same can’t be said about the safety position. Heading into Week 13, the Cowboys had three players (Byron Jones, Jeff Heath and Xavier Woods) who were all fighting for snaps. But after the performance of Kavon Frazier, there is one more player now in the mix. And that complicates things quite a bit. But before we try to figure out how that safety position will sort itself out, let’s take a look at Frazier’s best game of his career.