The Dallas Cowboys and Washington Commanders met for the 131st time on Sunday afternoon. Neither team is off to the start they were hoping for, but a win on Sunday could turn their fortunes around heading into the middle part of the season.

The Cowboys came out hot, scoring 10+ points in each of the first three quarters. It looked like we were in for a shootout, but Dallas’ defense actually made some plays and restricted the Commanders to 22 points while their offense ran away with this thing.

It was a blowout in Dallas, and here were my takeaways from Sunday’s game.

CeeDee Lamb is officially back

The Dallas Cowboys offense has been great this season, and they’ve been doing that without one of the best receivers in football: CeeDee Lamb. He returned from injury this week and instantly made his presence felt, catching a 74-yard touchdown to help the Cowboys build an early lead.

That wasn’t it for Lamb, though, who finished the first half with five catches for 110 yards and a touchdown. He actually wasn’t even targeted in the second half, but that’s largely because Dallas threw it just 10 times in the final 30 minutes.

Regardless, Lamb is back, and Dallas’ offense is just that much more dangerous now.

Washington really needs to get healthy

The Washington Commanders have looked like a shell of what they were at the end of last year, but that’s largely due to injuries on the offensive side of the ball. Jayden Daniels, Austin Ekeler, Deebo Samuel, and Terry McLaurin have all missed time this year, and it’s really shown these past couple of weeks.

The Commanders may have the best rushing attack in the league, but you need a strong passing game to succeed in the NFL, and they’ve just been lacking that. Daniels is talented enough to elevate a depleted roster, but when he’s missing one of his top running backs, his two top receivers, AND he’s battling through injuries, there’s only so much he can do. Now he’s hurt again, and they have to turn to Marcus Mariota for who knows how long.

Once the Commanders get healthy, they should be able to get back on track and fight for a Wild Card spot, but right now, their offense just isn’t good enough to contend in the NFC.

Cowboys’ end-of-half success continues

The Cowboys are the best team in the league when it comes to scoring in the final two minutes of the half. Actually, they’re the best team in the league in a lot of offensive categories, but for now, let’s talk about their two-minute success.

With Dak Prescott’s touchdown to Jake Ferguson with mere seconds left in the first half, the Cowboys have now scored 24 points on their final drive of the first half this year. That’s an average of 3.4 points in their final drive of the first half per game.

Just take a look at how good they’ve been in the closing minutes of the first half this year, especially in recent games.

After the Commanders marched down the field and cut the lead to five with under a minute left, it looked like we had a game, but Dak Prescott, George Pickens, and Javonte Williams completely took the wind out of their sails with back-to-back massive plays.

The Cowboys’ defense took steps forward

To be fair, there wasn’t much room for the Cowboys’ defense to take a step back. But in all seriousness, this was an encouraging performance for their defense.

Part of their defensive success was due to Jayden Daniels’ injury, but even when he was in, the Commanders didn’t look that great offensively. As a team, the Commanders completed just 50 percent of their passes for 205 yards and one touchdown, but the Cowboys came away with a massive pick-six in the second half to help seal this game.

They also held the best rushing offense in the country to 136 yards on 28 carries (4.9 average), which really isn’t that much of a win, but when you consider how bad they’ve been against the run this year, I think they’d take it.

However, where they really improved was on third down. They allowed the Commanders to convert just seven of their 16 third downs today. On top of that, Washington was 0-for-2 on fourth down.

Overall, there were just a ton of improvements for Dallas’ defense. Now they need to take this momentum and carry it over for the rest of the year.

Dak owns the Commanders, especially at home

Dak Prescott owns the Commanders. He’s 11-2 against Washington in his career and has thrown for 3,145 yards, 27 touchdowns and just five interceptions. However, the dominance gets even worse when you look at his stats at home.

With the win today, Prescott is now 7-0 against the Commanders and has totaled 23 touchdowns at home. He has just completely owned Washington’s franchise over the course of his career, and it doesn’t look like he’s slowing down anytime soon.