Rob Ryan said the defense doesn’t want to be a second-class citizen compared to the offense.
“Our offense, in my opinion, is second to none,” Ryan told reporters Friday at Valley Ranch. “We have a tremendous quarterback, and obviously a great system with Jason. So what we need to do is play better football on defense. We’ve been competitive. Maybe we’re not going to be great, but we need to be better than we’ve been. Need to keep the points down, and that’s how you win as a team.
“Our strength is definitely offense right now, but we don’t want to be a second-class citizen. We played that way last week, and it showed against a great offense and a talented quarterback in Drew Brees. We need to bounce back, have a great game here and be a part of this.”
Ryan said the short week for the Thanksgiving Day game “certainly didn’t help” but that the Cowboys had a good plan for the first game and got good pressure on Robert Griffin, with three sacks and seven quarterback hits.
“We forced him to throw the ball quick sometimes,” Ryan said. “We sacked him ... so I was happy with the pass rush we got on him last time. Did he beat some blown coverages? Yeah, he did. What we need to do is be better in our coverage, be more sound in what we do and execute. To me, I liked our plan last time. I just don’t think we executed all that well, especially in short yardage, especially in double coverage when a guy ran by us for about a hundred-yard touchdown.”
-- Carlos Mendez
Twitter @calexmendez
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