Golden: Exactly which Dallas Cowboys team will show up in San Francisco?

ARLINGTON — The lack of a real hammer in the short yardage run game.

Dak doesn’t run like that anymore and Zeke is in New England

Is it an identity crisis or should we just give up trying to figure out the Dallas Cowboys?

Maybe we should just roll with those ups and downs and figure it all at the end. They’re about to give us some kind of clue Sunday when they face a Super Bowl contender on the road.

One week after the no-show in the Arizona desert, the Cowboys looked the part of a real title contender on Sunday back in the friendly confines of AT&T Stadium. The 93,719 in attendance welcomed back the third-most prolific running back in franchise history and then proceeded to lay a 38-3 beatdown on Ezekiel Elliott and his new teammates.

The only Patriots highlight came before the game when the Cowboys unveiled a tribute video in honor of Elliott.

Then the carnage commenced.

How the times have changed

Who out there can remember the last time Bill Belichick called for a 52-yard field goal with his team down 38-3 in the final two minutes? This undressing was reminiscent of the 31-0 loss the Patriots took in the 2003 season opener, but that team had Tom Brady and went 14-1 the rest of the way en route to a Super Bowl win.

Without Brady, he’s still the GOAT of head coaches but had no answers for a Dallas defense that turned third-year quarterback Mac Jones into a 217-pound ball of putty, the likes of which we never saw in the two decades TB-12 was running the show in Foxborough. Dallas confused and flustered Jones into two interceptions and a lost fumble before Belichick ended his misery by replacing him in the fourth quarter with Bailey Zappe.

How the times have changed, part II

It would be easy to take the cynic’s viewpoint and keep on doubting — I get it, for the cynics out there — but we can at least give the Cowboys an opportunity to prove they can get it down in enemy territory against elite competition.

They’re a veteran bunch but still suffer these unexplainable lapses on occasion, the kind of toe stubbings that could conspire against their efforts to eventually host a playoff game in a place that they’ve won 10 straight games dating back to last season.

Last week’s no-show 28-16 road loss to the then-winless Arizona Cardinals could be chalked up to them missing a couple of offensive lineman and all-pro cornerback Trevon Diggs, who's out for the year with a torn ACL, but the good teams figure out a way to win even on a bad day at the office.

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Take the Philadelphia Eagles, for instance. They trailed early at home against Washington and went as far as to choke way a lead in the last second of regulation, but found a way to get the overtime win. No one will say the Eagles are playing great football, but they’re still 4-0 amid their struggles.

Dallas, to its credit, took care a business at the house to improve to 3-1 with a huge acid test coming up at 4-0 San Francisco Sunday. Those same Cardinals that ran over Dallas took a 35-16 spanking in San Francisco, by the way.

Dallas has shown some resiliency of late, improving to 9-1 in games after a loss over the last two-plus seasons. There’s something to be said for that kind of bounce-back.

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“I think our guys do a really good job of not getting too high and not getting too low,” said coach Mike McCarthy. “I think that serves us well over a 17-game season. At the end of the this is a player’s game.”

Lots to figure out, though

Questions still remain about the struggles in the red zone and the road performances of quarterback Dak Prescott, who played well, completing 28-of-34 passes for 261 yards and a touchdown. With small running Tony Pollard starting now and Zeke in New England, they still lack a hammer in short yardage, especially since Dak doesn’t appear interested in using his legs two years after that ankle surgery.

It's all about the D

On the surface, there are plenty of the weapons on the offense side of the ball, but this team is largely predicated on what its defense does. Dan Quinn’s crew provided one heck of a lift with three more takeaways. Shoot, even the former Atlanta Falcons head coach could take a breath with a 28-3 lead at halftime over a Belichick team though the stakes in regular season game were decidedly lower than that disastrous Super Bowl LI collapse in Houston.

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Even with Diggs on the shelf, his defense is dripping with athleticism, especially on defense where sophomore cornerback DaRon Bland picked off Jones twice, returning one 54 yards for a touchdown, his second of the year.

Veteran linebacker Leighton Vander Esch also scooped up a Jones fumble and and scored. Shoot, even 285-pound defensive end Chauncey Golston got into the act with a two-point catch on a fake extra point on a pass from punter Bryan Anger. You know things are good when three defensive players outscore the opposition 14-3.

Which still begs the question. How could these same guys play that way against the Cardinals?

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We’ll find out a lot about this team in San Francisco and you can expect the Cowboys to show up ready to roll.

“A win against that team would just feel like you’re playing for the marbles in the NFL,” owner Jerry Jones said. “When you play against a team here that is undefeated as we play them, we’re going to come in there and try to stay on the field with them.”

The fan base would appreciate a signature road win over a league blue blood, which would give this team the confidence it can take into the meat of the season.

Another road no-show can’t happen out West.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Which Dallas Cowboys will show up in San Francisco?