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By Jon Machota 17m ago
ARLINGTON, Texas — There is no need to recap this game. The Cowboys lost 38-10 at home Monday night to the Arizona Cardinals. It wasn’t really even that close.
Cardinals second-year quarterback Kyler Murray had more rushing attempts (10) than completed passes (9), the Cowboys turned the ball over four times, allowed 261 rushing yards and didn’t force a single takeaway.
Just when it looked like it couldn’t get any worse, Cardinals running back Kenyan Drake ripped off a 69-yard touchdown run untouched up the middle while Arizona was trying to run out the clock with 1:49 remaining.
It was ugly.
“We didn’t play very well on offense, defense or special teams,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said. “Most importantly, I didn’t coach very well. I have a continuing issue with ball security on my football team. That’s something I personally take a lot of pride in and how it reflects on how you play the game of football. I’m not getting it done right now.”
To recap Dallas’ nationally-televised disaster, here are 10 things I thought about in the AT&T Stadium press box as things got out of hand.
1.What is wrong with Ezekiel Elliott? After fumbling only three times all of last season, the Pro Bowl running back coughed the ball up twice on Monday, making it five in the last five games. The Cowboys’ defense was putting together their best start of the season, forcing Arizona to punt on the Cardinals’ first three possessions. But once the wheels came off for Elliott, it was over for the rest of the team as well. Elliott fumbled on back-to-back possessions late in the first quarter and early in the second. The Cardinals offense turned those turnovers into a 14-0 lead.
“Honestly, I don’t think it is much of what they did,” Elliott said. “I think it was me. I am supposed to be a guy this team can rely on. Supposed to be a guy this team can lean on when times get rough. And I just wasn’t that today. I got us started off to a terrible start. Defense was playing well. But I killed our momentum. Two fumbles, I can’t do that. I can’t.”
With Dak Prescott out for the year, Elliott needs to not only take on a larger leadership role but has to play at an elite level on the field as well. The two-time rushing champion said after the game that he has been working on his ball security more in practice. He couldn’t put a finger on what exactly the issue has been for him this season.
“I started the game out with two fumbles, gave the ball away and I gave them all the momentum that they needed to go and take off,” he said. “So, I mean, I want to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ This one’s on me. And I need to be better for this team.”
Elliott did not start the next series following his second fumble. Tony Pollard was on the field for the first eight plays before Elliott returned.
“Zeke is our bell cow, and we need to get it right,” McCarthy said. “He’s part of the plan. He’s going to be part of our success. So, we have to get it right. We have to take care of the football. That’s for everybody that touches the football on our team.”
2. Complementary football. Coaches talk about it so much that it’s easy to tune out. But it really is one of the Cowboys’ biggest weaknesses this season. As soon as something goes wrong in one area of the team, it seems to cause disaster somewhere else. The Cowboys haven’t done much well through six games, the worst being the offensive turnovers putting their defense in bad situations. Next on the list is probably the defense’s inability to get stops or take the ball away when the offense has something going.
“Started off fast, was in our zone, flying around, electric,” linebacker Jaylon Smith said. “We have to respond to adversity, and we didn’t do that tonight. Defense, we didn’t do that.
“Just collectively, as a whole, we have to lock in and do it right. It’s enough talking about it; we’ve got to do it right. We’re grown-ass men — we’ve got to do it right.”
Does the team have a “here we go again” feeling when things start to go wrong?
“No, I don’t even like that question, honestly,” linebacker Leighton Vander Esch said. “And I am not even going to answer it because there shouldn’t be any of that negative energy regardless.”
3. Historically bad. Just in case you needed statistics to back up just how bad the Cowboys have played this season. They have given up 218 points in six games. No other team has given up more than 192 (Vikings). That puts Dallas on pace to give up 581 points this season, which would be an NFL record. The most points allowed through six games in NFL history is 235 by the 1950 Baltimore Colts. The 1961 Raiders allowed 228, followed by Washington giving up 223 in 1954 and the Giants matching the current Cowboys at 218 back in 1948.
Dallas’ minus-12 turnover differential is the team’s worst since the franchise’s first NFL season in 1960, when they were minus-15 through six games.
“We’re the worst in the league taking care of the football,” McCarthy said. “We’re not taking it away, and we’re giving up more points than anybody in the league off of turnovers. It’s frustrating to see the pattern here in five of the six games this year. So, we’ve got to continue to work at it.”
4. What’s going on in practice? Reporters only get to see the first 30 minutes of two practices per week, and that doesn’t include any live action. The quarterbacks work inside while the rest of the team is outside during the media availability period. It’s mostly special teams work and individual drills. So what happens when no one from the outside is watching? Is it just a complete mess?
Apparently, that’s not the case. McCarthy said late Monday night that the “preparation coming into the game was probably our best so far this year.”
“But obviously that doesn’t even count for anything, particularly after a performance like tonight,” he added. “I can only go off of how I work with these men every day. They give it up for us as coaches every single day. They are doing the extra work that’s been asked of them.”
5. Dak Prescott’s contract. It was tough to watch that Cowboys offense and not think about how valuable Prescott is to the franchise. Most understood this well before yesterday. But it can’t be much more of a debate. The Cowboys need to make him one of the league’s highest-paid players and get a long-term deal done this upcoming offseason.
And that’s not a shot at Andy Dalton. Not many quarterbacks would have had success playing behind Brandon Knight, Connor Williams, Tyler Biadasz, Connor McGovern and Terence Steele last night. It’s actually quite surprising Dalton was able to finish the game after some of those hits. There will be better days for him and the patchwork offensive line this season, but it was pretty easy to think about how much the team missed Prescott.
“There are some good things that we can take away, but there’s a lot of areas we need to improve,” Dalton said. “It’s one of those things where everybody has to look at themselves. I’ve got to be better and I’ve got to do a better job out there of giving our guys chances.”
Dalton said he spoke with Prescott earlier in the day.
“He was excited for me to get a chance to play,” Dalton said. “We’ve got a great relationship, and it’s just one of those things where he said to ‘just be yourself and go play.’ Unfortunately, we were unable to get it done today.”
6. What is wrong with this defense? Obviously, leadership is needed to get things turned around on that side of the ball. But who does that group look to as their leader or leaders? Jaylon Smith? DeMarcus Lawrence? Tyrone Crawford? Leighton Vander Esch? Anyone in the secondary? It’s difficult to really know what their identity is as they work through a transition to a new defensive scheme. Of course, there wasn’t a regular offseason. It takes time to make adjustments. But where have the improvements been defensively from Week 1 to last night?
“I think we need to continue to find our identity,” Vander Esch said. “I think we know what we want to do. We know what we want to be. But we gotta have everybody at one time. We have to be firing on all cylinders to do that. I don’t know when it is going to happen. I think we are going to flip one, one of these times. I’ve got the utmost respect and everything for the guys in the room. And I know we come in every day and we fight.
“We are going to keep progressing. We gotta progress. We gotta do things better. It is as simple as that. We have to communicate better, we have to run to the ball better, just keep doing everything better. We can improve in so many areas. We are doing good things. We just need to be more consistent. I think that is really all there is to it.”
7. Positives. There weren’t many, but a few were probably the rookies — CeeDee Lamb and Trevon Diggs, in particular. It appears the strong draft class has carried over to the field. That should be a good sign for a team that will have to do the majority of their roster-building through the draft after Prescott’s deal is done. I tweeted during the game: Who played well for the Cowboys tonight? Of the 460 responses, the most common were Lamb, Diggs, Tony Pollard and Dalton Schultz.
Lamb was asked after the game about the difference in game plan with Dalton stepping in for Prescott.
“No, not at all,” he said. “We just didn’t execute as well as we have before. Obviously Dak’s out, but that’s not really an excuse. Andy’s a vet. We all trust him as if he was Dak. Grateful for actually working with him. It’s back to the drawing board. We’ve got to get better.”
8. Speaking of the draft. We don’t know where the Cowboys will be picking or who the top players will be that are available at the time, but the positions of need are pretty clear. At the top of the list has to be defensive tackle, defensive back, offensive tackle (depending on the health of Tryon Smith and La’el Collins) and edge rusher. It’s odd to be mentioning pass-rushers on a team that has Lawrence, Aldon Smith, Everson Griffen and Randy Gregory, but they need more help getting after opposing quarterbacks.
If you had to fix one position with Dallas’ first-round pick in next year’s draft, what would it be?
9. Free agency. Taking a look back at the Cowboys’ offseason signings, let’s just say it hasn’t been as impressive as maybe originally thought. Go ahead and look through those two lists and try to find the bright spots.
New contracts:
Dak Prescott, QB (franchise tag)
Amari Cooper, WR
Blake Jarwin, TE
Anthony Brown, CB
Sean Lee, LB
Joe Looney, C
Joe Thomas, LB
C.J. Goodwin, CB
Justin March, LB
Darian Thompson, S
L.P. Ladouceur, LS
Free-agent additions:
Everson Griffen, DE
Gerald McCoy, DT
Dontari Poe, DT
Andy Dalton, QB
Aldon Smith, DE
Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, S
Greg Zuerlein, K
Cameron Erving, OL
Blake Bell, TE
Daryl Worley, CB
10. Playoffs. Yes, Jim Mora, I said “playoffs.” Regardless of how bad the Cowboys are playing they still sit atop the NFC East standings at 2-4. There’s a decent chance that they could end up winning the division and hosting a first-round game. I’m always in favor of playoffs over tanking for a better draft pick, but maybe I need to reassess my thinking after watching this season. It’s difficult to see this team doing anything in the postseason even if they somehow sneak in.
They need so much help on defense, and the only way that’s happening is through the draft. I’m sure they’d gladly take some NFC East championship hats and shirts, but this current team has no business being in the playoffs. Despite Philadelphia also being banged up, the Eagles are the division’s best team right now.
ARLINGTON, Texas — There is no need to recap this game. The Cowboys lost 38-10 at home Monday night to the Arizona Cardinals. It wasn’t really even that close.
Cardinals second-year quarterback Kyler Murray had more rushing attempts (10) than completed passes (9), the Cowboys turned the ball over four times, allowed 261 rushing yards and didn’t force a single takeaway.
Just when it looked like it couldn’t get any worse, Cardinals running back Kenyan Drake ripped off a 69-yard touchdown run untouched up the middle while Arizona was trying to run out the clock with 1:49 remaining.
It was ugly.
“We didn’t play very well on offense, defense or special teams,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said. “Most importantly, I didn’t coach very well. I have a continuing issue with ball security on my football team. That’s something I personally take a lot of pride in and how it reflects on how you play the game of football. I’m not getting it done right now.”
To recap Dallas’ nationally-televised disaster, here are 10 things I thought about in the AT&T Stadium press box as things got out of hand.
1.What is wrong with Ezekiel Elliott? After fumbling only three times all of last season, the Pro Bowl running back coughed the ball up twice on Monday, making it five in the last five games. The Cowboys’ defense was putting together their best start of the season, forcing Arizona to punt on the Cardinals’ first three possessions. But once the wheels came off for Elliott, it was over for the rest of the team as well. Elliott fumbled on back-to-back possessions late in the first quarter and early in the second. The Cardinals offense turned those turnovers into a 14-0 lead.
“Honestly, I don’t think it is much of what they did,” Elliott said. “I think it was me. I am supposed to be a guy this team can rely on. Supposed to be a guy this team can lean on when times get rough. And I just wasn’t that today. I got us started off to a terrible start. Defense was playing well. But I killed our momentum. Two fumbles, I can’t do that. I can’t.”
With Dak Prescott out for the year, Elliott needs to not only take on a larger leadership role but has to play at an elite level on the field as well. The two-time rushing champion said after the game that he has been working on his ball security more in practice. He couldn’t put a finger on what exactly the issue has been for him this season.
“I started the game out with two fumbles, gave the ball away and I gave them all the momentum that they needed to go and take off,” he said. “So, I mean, I want to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ This one’s on me. And I need to be better for this team.”
Elliott did not start the next series following his second fumble. Tony Pollard was on the field for the first eight plays before Elliott returned.
“Zeke is our bell cow, and we need to get it right,” McCarthy said. “He’s part of the plan. He’s going to be part of our success. So, we have to get it right. We have to take care of the football. That’s for everybody that touches the football on our team.”
2. Complementary football. Coaches talk about it so much that it’s easy to tune out. But it really is one of the Cowboys’ biggest weaknesses this season. As soon as something goes wrong in one area of the team, it seems to cause disaster somewhere else. The Cowboys haven’t done much well through six games, the worst being the offensive turnovers putting their defense in bad situations. Next on the list is probably the defense’s inability to get stops or take the ball away when the offense has something going.
“Started off fast, was in our zone, flying around, electric,” linebacker Jaylon Smith said. “We have to respond to adversity, and we didn’t do that tonight. Defense, we didn’t do that.
“Just collectively, as a whole, we have to lock in and do it right. It’s enough talking about it; we’ve got to do it right. We’re grown-ass men — we’ve got to do it right.”
Does the team have a “here we go again” feeling when things start to go wrong?
“No, I don’t even like that question, honestly,” linebacker Leighton Vander Esch said. “And I am not even going to answer it because there shouldn’t be any of that negative energy regardless.”
3. Historically bad. Just in case you needed statistics to back up just how bad the Cowboys have played this season. They have given up 218 points in six games. No other team has given up more than 192 (Vikings). That puts Dallas on pace to give up 581 points this season, which would be an NFL record. The most points allowed through six games in NFL history is 235 by the 1950 Baltimore Colts. The 1961 Raiders allowed 228, followed by Washington giving up 223 in 1954 and the Giants matching the current Cowboys at 218 back in 1948.
Dallas’ minus-12 turnover differential is the team’s worst since the franchise’s first NFL season in 1960, when they were minus-15 through six games.
“We’re the worst in the league taking care of the football,” McCarthy said. “We’re not taking it away, and we’re giving up more points than anybody in the league off of turnovers. It’s frustrating to see the pattern here in five of the six games this year. So, we’ve got to continue to work at it.”
4. What’s going on in practice? Reporters only get to see the first 30 minutes of two practices per week, and that doesn’t include any live action. The quarterbacks work inside while the rest of the team is outside during the media availability period. It’s mostly special teams work and individual drills. So what happens when no one from the outside is watching? Is it just a complete mess?
Apparently, that’s not the case. McCarthy said late Monday night that the “preparation coming into the game was probably our best so far this year.”
“But obviously that doesn’t even count for anything, particularly after a performance like tonight,” he added. “I can only go off of how I work with these men every day. They give it up for us as coaches every single day. They are doing the extra work that’s been asked of them.”
5. Dak Prescott’s contract. It was tough to watch that Cowboys offense and not think about how valuable Prescott is to the franchise. Most understood this well before yesterday. But it can’t be much more of a debate. The Cowboys need to make him one of the league’s highest-paid players and get a long-term deal done this upcoming offseason.
And that’s not a shot at Andy Dalton. Not many quarterbacks would have had success playing behind Brandon Knight, Connor Williams, Tyler Biadasz, Connor McGovern and Terence Steele last night. It’s actually quite surprising Dalton was able to finish the game after some of those hits. There will be better days for him and the patchwork offensive line this season, but it was pretty easy to think about how much the team missed Prescott.
“There are some good things that we can take away, but there’s a lot of areas we need to improve,” Dalton said. “It’s one of those things where everybody has to look at themselves. I’ve got to be better and I’ve got to do a better job out there of giving our guys chances.”
Dalton said he spoke with Prescott earlier in the day.
“He was excited for me to get a chance to play,” Dalton said. “We’ve got a great relationship, and it’s just one of those things where he said to ‘just be yourself and go play.’ Unfortunately, we were unable to get it done today.”
6. What is wrong with this defense? Obviously, leadership is needed to get things turned around on that side of the ball. But who does that group look to as their leader or leaders? Jaylon Smith? DeMarcus Lawrence? Tyrone Crawford? Leighton Vander Esch? Anyone in the secondary? It’s difficult to really know what their identity is as they work through a transition to a new defensive scheme. Of course, there wasn’t a regular offseason. It takes time to make adjustments. But where have the improvements been defensively from Week 1 to last night?
“I think we need to continue to find our identity,” Vander Esch said. “I think we know what we want to do. We know what we want to be. But we gotta have everybody at one time. We have to be firing on all cylinders to do that. I don’t know when it is going to happen. I think we are going to flip one, one of these times. I’ve got the utmost respect and everything for the guys in the room. And I know we come in every day and we fight.
“We are going to keep progressing. We gotta progress. We gotta do things better. It is as simple as that. We have to communicate better, we have to run to the ball better, just keep doing everything better. We can improve in so many areas. We are doing good things. We just need to be more consistent. I think that is really all there is to it.”
7. Positives. There weren’t many, but a few were probably the rookies — CeeDee Lamb and Trevon Diggs, in particular. It appears the strong draft class has carried over to the field. That should be a good sign for a team that will have to do the majority of their roster-building through the draft after Prescott’s deal is done. I tweeted during the game: Who played well for the Cowboys tonight? Of the 460 responses, the most common were Lamb, Diggs, Tony Pollard and Dalton Schultz.
Lamb was asked after the game about the difference in game plan with Dalton stepping in for Prescott.
“No, not at all,” he said. “We just didn’t execute as well as we have before. Obviously Dak’s out, but that’s not really an excuse. Andy’s a vet. We all trust him as if he was Dak. Grateful for actually working with him. It’s back to the drawing board. We’ve got to get better.”
8. Speaking of the draft. We don’t know where the Cowboys will be picking or who the top players will be that are available at the time, but the positions of need are pretty clear. At the top of the list has to be defensive tackle, defensive back, offensive tackle (depending on the health of Tryon Smith and La’el Collins) and edge rusher. It’s odd to be mentioning pass-rushers on a team that has Lawrence, Aldon Smith, Everson Griffen and Randy Gregory, but they need more help getting after opposing quarterbacks.
If you had to fix one position with Dallas’ first-round pick in next year’s draft, what would it be?
9. Free agency. Taking a look back at the Cowboys’ offseason signings, let’s just say it hasn’t been as impressive as maybe originally thought. Go ahead and look through those two lists and try to find the bright spots.
New contracts:
Dak Prescott, QB (franchise tag)
Amari Cooper, WR
Blake Jarwin, TE
Anthony Brown, CB
Sean Lee, LB
Joe Looney, C
Joe Thomas, LB
C.J. Goodwin, CB
Justin March, LB
Darian Thompson, S
L.P. Ladouceur, LS
Free-agent additions:
Everson Griffen, DE
Gerald McCoy, DT
Dontari Poe, DT
Andy Dalton, QB
Aldon Smith, DE
Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, S
Greg Zuerlein, K
Cameron Erving, OL
Blake Bell, TE
Daryl Worley, CB
10. Playoffs. Yes, Jim Mora, I said “playoffs.” Regardless of how bad the Cowboys are playing they still sit atop the NFC East standings at 2-4. There’s a decent chance that they could end up winning the division and hosting a first-round game. I’m always in favor of playoffs over tanking for a better draft pick, but maybe I need to reassess my thinking after watching this season. It’s difficult to see this team doing anything in the postseason even if they somehow sneak in.
They need so much help on defense, and the only way that’s happening is through the draft. I’m sure they’d gladly take some NFC East championship hats and shirts, but this current team has no business being in the playoffs. Despite Philadelphia also being banged up, the Eagles are the division’s best team right now.
