The Dallas Cowboys are bad at football. That’s a tough reality to live in. For months we have been clinging to the hope that a stellar offense with a gradually improving defense would be the magic ticket to help this team pick up steam and start rolling down the stretch of the season. We have some bad news. Nothing’s rolling.
The defense remains terrible, and the offense has started to join in by underperforming at unpopular moments in the game. The whole thing culminates in disappointing outings
and losses to what we think are inferior teams. One after the other.
The latest letdown elevates the frustration to another notch. That’s because it appeared like they were onto something by building a 14-point lead, but things inevitably fell apart. What happened this time? Taking a closer look paints an uncomfortable picture.
To start off, it’s important to note that these two teams aren’t too far off when it comes to ability. They both now have the same record, and this one went down to the wire, so it tracks. That’s why it was misleading when the Cowboys got off to an early lead. It wasn’t because of sheer dominance. It was just luck.
When you look at what went on early in the game, the Cowboys benefited greatly when a Jonathan Mingo muffed punt bounced right back into his hands. They were also fortunate that backup tight end James Mitchell was right there to fall on a Javonte Williams fumble in the end zone. Even Shemar James’ interception that he returned deep into Arizona territory bounced right into his arms after it deflected off the Cardinals’ receiver. You could make a strong case that this game would’ve remained a lot tighter had the ball bounced a little differently.
But hey, that’s football, and Cowboys fans certainly aren’t going to complain when some breaks go their way. The Cardinals kept dropping passes, committed a lot of false starts at terrible times, and even shanked the game-winning extra point at the end of regulation. Bad teams do bad things, and the Cardinals did their fair share.
Offensively, you might be inclined to think the Cowboys scored 30 points and that’s more than enough. The offense did their part. But did they? They did score six times, three touchdowns and three field goals, but a close look shows the offense didn’t look all that great. One of their touchdowns came from that before mentioned fumble recovery in the end zone, and the only reason they were down that far was because of the interception return.
The Cowboys’ other two touchdowns came from improv plays where Dak Prescott started to scramble. In fact, on one of those scrambles, he ran into the end zone. When you step back, you see an offense that sputtered quite a bit. They didn’t have any creative play calls to free up players. They often didn’t have the correct protection set up, giving Cardinals defenders free shots in the backfield. And even when they just needed to get one lousy first down to run out the clock, they couldn’t pull it off.
The result was 261 total yards against the defense that gives up the most points in the league. An offense with Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens, and several first-round offensive linemen couldn’t get the job done in critical moments. As unimpressive as this unit was, they were still outfailed by the defense.
Oh, the defense. What a weird game it was for this group. It’s weird because, unlike the offense, they were never meh. They were either great or dreadful. There was no in-between. They started off really sharp. The pressure was there, the coverage was decent, and they were making hard-hitting tackles. The Cardinals couldn’t get anything going. To understand this, let’s offer some perspective.
With 90 seconds left in the first half, the Cowboys led 14-0. The Cardinals hadn’t scored any points yet. With 90 seconds left in the third quarter, the Cowboys led 17-3. The Cardinals only had a field goal through almost three quarters of football. The defense finished with five sacks and two takeaways. They were making plays, but then they went from playing really well to absolutely horrid. What happened?
This is the frustrating part. The Cowboys got comfortable. Instead of playing disciplined, sound football, they wanted to annihilate the Cardinals and got caught overpursuing. On the big running plays, it was a collection of failures. The defensive line didn’t maintain their gaps. Instead, they were aggressive and attacked upfield. With holes available, the defensive backs took poor angles and completely whiffed with their tackling. Manageable gains turned into monster plays for the Cardinals.
Those two big running plays allowed Arizona to get back in the game because they were fast strikes. And when the Cowboys offense couldn’t finish things on their end, the Cardinals were given more chances to attack, and the defense wasn’t equipped to fend them off.
Many will say that Minshew Mania saved the day. That’s not what went down. Sure, credit Minshew for making plays, but he wasn’t pulling off any Houdini escapes or threading any needles. He just calmly capitalized on coverage breakdowns by the Cowboys’ defense. On the Cardinals’ final two touchdowns, one to Trey McBride and another to Michael Wilson, there wasn’t a defender anywhere close on either play. It was easy, and quite honestly, we all watched helplessly knowing it was coming.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the Cowboys do have talented pieces. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean anything if this team can’t find a way to use them correctly. Both the offense and defense are having mental lapses and breakdowns. And it keeps happening week after week with no end in sight.
