ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Of all the breakdowns after halftime for the Dallas Cowboys in yet another loss to the Arizona Cardinals, owner Jerry Jones seemed most bothered by his sputtering offense.
Dallas had a chance to survive a fourth-quarter collapse by forcing a punt to start overtime, only to have Dak Prescott and company match the three-and-out by the Cardinals.
Arizona drove to a field goal for the 33-30 victory after Chad Ryland's missed PAT
in the final seconds of regulation kept the Cardinals from winning without the extra period.
The Cardinals (3-5), who have had one winning season in the past decade, have beaten Dallas five consecutive times and are 5-0 at AT&T Stadium, the home of the Cowboys that opened in 2009.
“It's an indictment of the whole show,” Jones summarized after a long-winded attempt to explain to himself how the Cowboys lost when they didn't trail until the game was over and had a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter.
Jones wasn't ready to indict coach Brian Schottenheimer, who has just one winning streak in his two seasons — a three-game run last season when Dallas finished 7-9-1.
Now 3-5 and still trying to believe a weak NFC East gives them hope, the Cowboys also face the reality that they have spent exactly one of 25 weeks above .500 under a coach running a team for the first time after the son of 200-game winner Marty Schottenheimer spent 25 years as an NFL assistant.
“None of us are getting it done,” Jones said. “And that should be my concern. So I’m not pointing at Shotty. I’m not pointing to anybody. I haven’t been involved in too many games that we should have won it. We had the opportunities we had to win this game. That is a big snapshot that we want to put above our mirror.”
The beleaguered Dallas defense forced three punts and two turnovers and had a goal-line stand among the first seven Arizona possessions.
Then Tyler Allgeier broke free for a 63-yard touchdown late in the third quarter, and the Cowboys gave up three more TD drives in the fourth quarter. The last covered 80 yards in 63 seconds when the Cardinals didn't have any timeouts.
After Dallas finally did get another stop to start overtime, Javonte Williams ran for 2 yards, Prescott's pass was tipped at the line of scrimmage and the last of a season-high four sacks forced the Cowboys to give the ball right back.
A defense that ranks among the worst in the NFL didn't have another stop in it.
“It’s what we’re about, to go in and win those games, overtime second possession, we nail that field goal,” Jones said. “We've got the best field goal kicker in my view in the country and we've got to get him in a position to do it. We did not do it, and that is a criticism of everybody concerned here.”
Prescott was 19 of 29 for 195 yards, and a running game that was coming off a 204-yard showing in a victory over Philadelphia was limited to a 2.4-yard average.
Williams had a career-high 155 yards on 25 carries against the Eagles. He had 56 yards on 24 carries this week.
“At this point, talk is cheap,” Prescott said. “Telling stories is cheap. We've got to go write on our story. We've put ourselves in this position.”
The heat is turning up on Schottenheimer to get the Cowboys out of this position.
“I believe in our staff,” Schottenheimer said. “I believe our players. I think we played a really good game in Philadelphia. And then we played pretty good first half here. Second half was not very good. So we got to look at the film and learn from it.”
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