Linebacker Sean Lee stated the obvious after Thursday's 31-26 victory _ the Dallas Cowboys' defense has room to improve.
This is a unit that gave up its most yards to the Washington Redskins (505) since the New Orleans Saints torched them for 625 in November 2013. This is a unit that had no sacks for the first time this season, and failed to produce a takeaway for a fourth straight week.
Is the defense going to be the downfall of this season? It's a unit that is seemingly regressing when the offense is improving.
But those within the organization aren't fretting quite yet. At least not publicly.
"I think if you watch us throughout the year, we've played good defense," Lee said. "I think we've stopped the run, tried to make teams one-dimensional. But when we do do that and stop the run, we can't give up big plays. We pride ourselves in not giving up big plays.
"We have to get back to not doing that. At the same point, I think we've done a lot of good things that's helped us win."
The defense had its moments Thursday. They forced the Redskins to settle for field goals on two trips to the red zone, and the run defense held them to a sub-3 yard rushing average.
But the lack of pass rush and takeaway numbers are alarming. Those are two areas the Cowboys knew they had to improve upon this season, and so far they haven't.
Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins threw it 53 times and the Cowboys had no sacks. Granted, they went with a three-man rush at times because they were playing with a lead, but the lack of pressure is still troubling.
Defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence, who led the team with eight sacks a season ago, has only one sack in seven games.
"We need more pressure," Lawrence said. "But we're 10 and 1, so that's all that matters."
Yes, the won/loss record is what matters right now, but this is a team that envisions a deep playoff run and possible Super Bowl berth for the first time in 21years.
And pass rush and takeaways directly correlate to championship teams.
With 20 in 11 games, the Cowboys are on pace for 29 sacks. The last three Super Bowl champions all had at least 40 in the regular season. The 2006 Indianapolis Colts had the fewest sacks of a Super Bowl winning team with 25.
The Cowboys are also on pace for just 15 takeaways. The past three Super Bowl winners all had at least 25 takeaways in the regular season.
"It's on our minds, we talk about it the daily," cornerback Brandon Carr said. "It's all about just figuring out when those opportunities come in the game. When they come, we've got to take advantage of them. So many times we've had balls in our hands, had opportunities to create those turnovers in the past few games, just couldn't come up with the play. If you come down with those plays, the tide of the game changes."
As much as owner Jerry Jones and coach Jason Garrett and tight end Jason Witten offered praise for the defense after Thursday's performance, with Jones pointing out on his KRLD 105.3/The Fan radio show that the Redskins are the league's top offense, the veterans on defense know these types of outings aren't going to cut it in the long run.
Carr called it "gut-check time" for a defense that has allowed an average of 440 yards the past three games.
"We've got to clean some things up," Carr said. "Of course you play to win the game, and it's hard to win any given Sunday in this league. But we know our standards on the defense and lately we haven't been playing to our standards.
"It's gut-check time for us to look ourselves in the mirror, don't look at the record or anything, just look at our performance and how we've been going out there and playing. We want to get takeaways, want to get back to being aggressive and being physical on defense."
