The Dallas Cowboys may have shown who they are, for good this time in regards to this 2025 season, in week six. Making their third straight trip to Carolina to play the Carolina Panthers, with a third defensive coordinator, the Cowboys could not come close to doing what the defense of either Dan Quinn or Mike Zimmer did in these previous meetings. The pass rush did not pick up where they left off against a Jets team that is still winless and allowed nine sacks to the Broncos this time out, the run
defense being nonexistent was a problem in a close game, and once again defenders in the secondary were nowhere to be found on big pass plays for Bryce Young and the Panthers.
The Cowboys offense did what it could to hold serve, and didn’t leave the field in Charlotte without their own miscues to regret in a three-point loss, but the Panthers having the ball last was all it took to decide the final outcome. The Panthers kicked a 33-yard field goal as time expired to stay undefeated at home and reach .500 at 3-3 on the season with the 30-27 upset win. They denied the Cowboys reaching a 3-2-1 record on the same week they were gifted a Philadelphia Eagles loss at the New York Giants, putting Dallas at 2-3-1 and back at the bottom of the mountain when it comes to building any momentum under Brian Schottenheimer.
The Cowboys schedule only gets harder from here, their wins against the two New York franchises are hardly anything to write home about, and the defense is all but confirmed to be a season-long Achilles heel that will take more than just the currently injured players coming back to fix. The worst realization is that the Cowboys current defense is proving themselves as bad enough to sink the entire evaluation of the personnel this season. Dallas stuck their neck out in very uncharacteristic ways to improve the roster this offseason, and are evaluating Dak Prescott in yet another scheme under a new play-caller. They are looking to put their recent draft picks in the best position to succeed. Judging how much any of this is working or not feels impossible given how many easy plays, points, and rushing yards this defense concedes on a weekly basis.
Coach Schottenheimer seems destined to follow in the path of his predecessor Mike McCarthy, having a struggling defensive coordinator in the first year of his tenure that leads to a change in year two. For many Cowboys fans at the moment, even waiting until then feels too long, if only for wanting to be able to appreciate the MVP-level Prescott continues to play at even a little bit. This transition from Mike Nolan to Dan Quinn obviously ended up working out well for McCarthy though. Now, Schottenheimer’s next game will be against Quinn and the Washington Commanders, the last divisional team the Cowboys have yet to play this season.
Before getting into that matchup, let’s take a closer look at how the Cowboys failed to take control of the game at the Panthers, and how it cost them in the end.
The Cowboys settled for two red zone field goals in this game on offense, both of which left points on the field which would prove costly in yet another game they needed to be unfairly perfect. The first Brandon Aubrey field goal came after a red zone stop from the Cowboys defense to start the game, when Solomon Thomas and Reddy Steward combined for a third-down run stop on a rare handoff in this game not to former Cowboy Rico Dowdle. The Cowboys Swiss cheese style of zone defense has benefited a few times this season from playing condensed in the red zone and worrying less about the ball going over their heads, but even this is not nearly good enough to have something to hang their hat on.
Dallas only tying the game by answering this opening field goal after George Pickens’ athletic 31-yard catch-and-run was the first warning sign that the Cowboys would not build the separation they needed to replicate any of the good complementary football they showed against the Jets. The Cowboys run defense would become a bigger and bigger problem in this game as it stayed close, even with the Cowboys taking their first lead off a Donovan Wilson interception.
Wilson playing down closer to the line of scrimmage to be in position for a tipped ball off the hands of a Panthers receiver covered by DaRon Bland was a rare example of a defender in Eberflus’ scheme capitalizing on being put in the best position to make a play. Wilson has always been best in this role, but his reps to do so this season have been few and far between. On the very next Panthers drive, Wilson was back in the unfortunate but all-too-familiar position of playing deep coverage and allowing rookie receiver Tet McMillan behind him for his first career touchdown.
McMillan’s score tied the game at ten after Hunter Luepke’s receiving touchdown off play-action briefly put the Cowboys ahead again. It was the second week in a row the Cowboys used play-action to get a wide open look for a back or tight end near the goal line. This play may have proved what was already known from the start of the game, which is that Dallas didn’t need to even be running the ball well to get all elements of their passing game working. They would stick with the pass to answer the back-and-forth following McMillan’s touchdown to jump ahead 17-10 on Jake Ferguson’s third touchdown in the last two weeks. After Pickens moved the chains with another great individual play on fourth down, Ferguson capped the drive with six points, but this type of pass-first approach still did not stick in Schotty’s play-calling.
The Cowboys appeared stuck between wanting to stay patient enough in their run game to not expose a defense that rightfully cannot be trusted at all right now, yet knowing their most consistent positive plays were coming with the pass. The one disparity that jumps out on the stat sheet is the Cowboys 1.6 yards per rushing play on 31 yards compared to 216 and 5.7 yards a clip for the Panthers. That sealed the road team’s fate in this one.
Rico Dowdle accounted for 183 of these yards on the ground, but also had the longest receiving touchdown of his career to put the Panthers up early in the third quarter. Much like McMillan took advantage of Wilson biting up in coverage in the first half for a touchdown, Dowdle did the same to a mix-up in zone coverage on a play-action pass to find plenty of open space and score from 36-yards out.
The Cowboys offense felt like it got in their own way of trying to make more explosive plays than they had in this game, while the Panthers rattled them off whenever they wanted. This was the third week in a row Dak Prescott threw at least three touchdowns, and the Cowboys are 1-1-1 in this stretch. The pressure on him to end nearly every single drive with a touchdown has the Cowboys well on the outside looking in on teams to be taken seriously for contention this year.
The Cowboys defense was able to hold long enough from this point on to get the ball back to the Cowboys offense a second time trailing by just four, after their first possession of the second half ended in a punt with a negative run play to Javonte Williams on a pitch. Back in the lineup for the first time in two weeks, Tyler Smith at left guard mistimed the play and was downfield blocking ahead of Williams while the defensive lineman he lined up across from was tackling Williams for a loss. This made it crystal clear the Cowboys needed to go back to the air on the second drive of the third quarter, running just once for another loss of two yards on the drive.
The Cowboys leaned on the pass and sprung Pickens again on a simple slant pattern out of a no-huddle look. Dallas got the ball to Pickens the play before on second down, and liked the look enough to come right back to it and hit Pickens on third down for a 34-yard strike. As if the Cowboys offense can do any more to try and help this team win games, the team has an option in the receiving game to keep the offense afloat even when CeeDee Lamb is out, and the sky will truly be the limit when both Lamb and Pickens are on the field together again. The same can be said in the opposite direction for how much lower the floor can get for a defense with no answers coming out of this loss to the Panthers, the first time Carolina has gotten the better of Dallas since 2018.
While the Cowboys needed almost all passing plays to take their first lead of the second half, the Panthers were able to stick with the run. Bryce Young threw just two passes on the ensuing drive, one of which went to Dowdle, the other to McMillan for a second touchdown. The Cowboys defense held up their pattern of forcing a punt following a touchdown allowed after the Cowboys answered again to tie the game at 27, but it led to the critical point of losing control to win the game for the Cowboys offense.
The Cowboys went with three straight screen passes behind the line of scrimmage to totally waste good field position when one first down would have had them on the edge of Aubrey’s field goal range. The first came off play-action and went to Williams, who caught the ball a full six yards behind the line of scrimmage and lost five. The play was an extension of the type of play-action or rollout, misdirection throws that are bread and butter plays for this offense, but instead of targeting Pickens or Flournoy (who also ran a screen to the other side), the ball went to Williams in a bad spot.
The second play was a check down to Williams after Prescott was quickly forced to come off his first reads of Pickens and Flournoy, this time running unimaginative stop routes that were covered. Williams was immediately dumped for another loss of seven yards, bringing up an untenable 3rd-and-22. A four-yard swing pass to Hunter Luepke was all Dallas could manage in this spot. Punting the ball away with over six minutes left at the very least provided the slight hope that the Cowboys could touch the ball again regardless of what the Panthers did, but this would require stopping the run. The Cowboys could not, and the Panthers kicked the game-winning field goal as the clock hit zero.
Eberflus’ defense did get the Panthers into two third-down attempts and even a fourth down on the winning drive, but they converted each time. Kaiir Elam was called for pass interference on 3rd-and-7 to move the chains the first time. The fourth-down conversion much later in the drive was the final backbreaker. Bland was playing off on Hunter Renfrow out of the slot, and the Cowboys showed pressure with Kenneth Murray in the A-gap. By showing this pressure, Young already knew he had a hot throw to Renfrow based on Bland’s alignment, and even dropping out of this pressure did not help.
Murray was asked as the only dropping linebacker to get all the way across the hashes and be in the throwing lane on the short pass, the type of play he has shown absolutely no ability to make this season. The Cowboys were also without their other new acquisition at linebacker Jack Sanborn in this game, but their insistence to play both Murray and Sanborn in all of these crucial spots continues to hurt them no matter what. Murray could not make the play, Dowdle added nine more yards to his total on the next play to make the field goal even more of a chip shot, and the Cowboys left the field disappointed still without consecutive wins at any point this season.
The offense will feel some of this disappointment with three punts and two field goals, but sprinkled in there were continued positives for Pickens, Ferguson, Prescott, and the offensive line. These same cannot be said about yet another complete and total disappointment from a defense lost for answers and nearly out of time to find them anyway.
