CHICAGO (AP) — The Dallas Cowboys got the ball back after the Chicago Bears scored an early touchdown and opted to hand the ball off to star receiver CeeDee Lamb.
It didn't work out well for them. Not much else went the way they would have liked, either.
A 31-14 loss to the struggling Chicago Bears was not what the Cowboys had in mind after giving coach Brian Schottenheimer the first win of his career the previous week. Instead of building on an overtime thriller against the New York Giants, Dallas
stumbled against a team that came in with some big issues of its own.
“Obviously, you lose a player like CeeDee, it hurts,” quarterback Dak Prescott said. “It's hard to substitute that.”
The Cowboys never really got their offense into gear after losing one of their top playmakers in the early going.
It happened right after the Bears grabbed a 7-0 lead. Chicago's Rome Odunze had all the room he needed to haul in a 35-yard touchdown from Caleb Williams after Dallas cornerback Trevon Diggs slipped at the line.
The Cowboys took over at the 20 and had a second down at the 37 when Lamb lined up in the backfield. From there, things took a bad turn.
A four-time Pro Bowler with back-to-back 100-yard receiving games to start the season, Lamb took the handoff and tried to turn the right corner. His left ankle buckled as Bears linebacker Noah Sewell made the tackle.
Lamb walked gingerly toward the sideline. He had a noticeable limp when he returned at the start of the second quarter and was ruled out for the remainder of the game at halftime.
“Certainly, you lose a player like CeeDee, it affects you,” coach Brian Schottenheimer said. “But, again, we just didn’t play well, we really didn’t, and (I) told the guys that.”
The dud in Chicago came after two wild games to start the season.
The Cowboys went from dealing with a spitting incident and a weather delay in a tight season-opening loss to defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia to squeezing out a 40-37 win over the Giants, when Brandon Aubrey kicked a 46-yard field goal as time expired in OT after nailing a 64-yarder on the final play of regulation.
Lamb came up big in the first two games, with 112 yards last week after going for 110 in the opener. Once he went down against the Bears, the Cowboys couldn't get their offense in gear when it mattered.
Though Dallas finished with 396 yards, 151 came in the fourth quarter when the game was out of hand. The Cowboys had just one touchdown, when George Pickens made a one-handed grab on a 2-yard score, and two field goals.
“I know scoring 14 points is never going to be OK,” Prescott said. "Dang sure not with this offense, this unit, the team, the players we have. Six of those were field goals, so not acceptable, not to our standard, not anywhere what we believe in and what we’re capable of doing and got away, got away quick and had a chance right there to cut it back to 10 and had a turnover in the red zone.
"That’s unacceptable.”
Lamb has missed only three games since he entered the NFL in 2020. He sat out the final two last season because of a shoulder injury with the Cowboys out of playoff contention.
Once Lamb went down Sunday, the Bears could focus more on Pickens. He had five receptions for 68 yards. Jake Ferguson had 82 yards receiving, and Javonte Williams ran for 76 yards on 10 attempts.
Prescott, meanwhile, completed 31 of 40 passes, but had just 251 yards. He threw a touchdown pass to George Pickens in the second quarter, but was intercepted twice and sat out Dallas’ final series.
“It's never easy watching a guy go down, especially with one of your best guys, one of the leaders on this team,” Ferguson said. “That just also means at the same time other guys have to step up.”
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