The big mistakes made at the end of games are always the ones critics remember best. Fair or not, this weighted blame game is how it goes in sports and that’s bad news for Jake Ferguson. Ferguson, the Dallas Cowboys’ long time TE1, has the unfortunate distinction of making the last major mistake in Dallas’ 24-16 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 5.
With 1:22 on the clock, down by eight, and the Cowboys driving deep into Tampa Bay territory, Ferguson took a perfect Dak Prescott pass off the facemask for what would essentially be a game-ending interception. The play counted a staggering -4.4 EPA and marked the biggest shift in win probability of the day, dropping Dallas’ odds down to one percent.
Ferguson’s tragic blunder was the latest of
a long list of errors by the 27-year-old veteran. Ferguson has been guilty of dropped passes and costly fumbles for quite some time. His blocking has lacked in both execution and effort and ability to gain yards after the catch have dropped to late-career Jason Witten levels.
ALEX ANZALONE PICKS IT OFF!@TBvsDAL on Prime Video
— NFL (@NFL) October 9, 2026
Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/DDN666VaJz
Ferguson has seemingly been on the decline for quite some time. In 2024, he posted arguably the worst tight end season in decades according to one metric. Aaron Schatz, the creator of Football Outsiders, applied his widely respected DYAR metric to Ferguson and found that season’s performance to be record setting in all the wrong ways. While the raw numbers, and particularly touchdown totals, look respectable, his errors have fallen far below replacement level standards.
Things haven’t gotten much better since his historically bad 2024 season, with Ferguson continuing to fall short expectations year after year and never remotely approaching that standout 2023 season that first put him on the map.
Jake Ferguson’s struggles aren’t new. The splits this year favor him on the sideline and issues go back all the way to 2024 when he rated an all-time worst on @ASchatzNFL DYAR grades. (Graphic credit @csv_enjoyer ) pic.twitter.com/VKy4q70wlH
— Reid D Hanson (@ReidDHanson) October 9, 2026
In Week 5, the Cowboys were 0.024 EPA worse with him on the field. It follows a trend this season with Dallas being 0.056 EPA better with Ferguson on the sideline. The Cowboys success rate jumps from 47.2 to 49.4 when he leaves as well, with only the yards per play increasing with Ferguson on the field. Yet, even the yards can be explained since Dallas passes 25 percent more often when he’s on the field and passing, almost by rule, produces more yards than rushing.
Here is another massive play you might have forgotten from Thursday Night:
— Marcus Mosher (@Marcus_Mosher) October 9, 2026
1st and 10 from TB's 27 with less than a minute left.
If Ferguson catches this ball, the Cowboys are inside the 20 with a great shot at going up 14-7.
Drop. pic.twitter.com/xZ0dle719z
The Cowboys aren’t exactly a hotbed of tight end talent so the splits are pretty telling. Brevyn Spann-Ford is a great blocker but he’s not someone who’s a downfield playmaker. Luke Schoonmaker is more in the traditional TE1 mold but he’s more inconsistent and replaceable than Ferguson. There just isn’t a clear and obvious replacement to Ferguson so the Cowboys don’t have many options. But a good place to start would be to give Spann-Ford more snaps and simply target the tight end position less downfield.
This article could have very easily focused on DaRon Bland and his missed opportunity to tie things up with a giftwrapped pick-6. But the last mistake gets the blame here and that mistake was made by a player who’s been a problem for quite a while.
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This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Cowboys TE position is a problem that just keeps getting worse
