Machota: Cowboys hit another low, ‘running out of time’ to save awful season

Cotton

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By Jon Machota Oct 25, 2020

When the dust settles and all 16 games have been played, the 2020 Dallas Cowboys have a chance to be the franchise’s worst team since 1989, Jerry Jones’ first year as owner. That group finished 1-15. It was Jimmy Johnson’s first year as head coach, and he was turning things around. Three years later, the Cowboys began one of the greatest championship runs in NFL history.

It’s unlikely that many are having similar feelings about where things are currently headed in Dallas.

The Cowboys produced another embarrassing performance Sunday at Washington. It wasn’t just the score. Yes, 25-3 is bad. But it’s even worse when it happens against a Washington team that will probably have a top-10 pick in next year’s draft and has been one of the NFL’s worst organizations for the better part of the past decade. And the game was never even competitive.

To make matters worse, quarterback Andy Dalton was knocked out of the game with a concussion after a nasty shot to the head from Washington linebacker Jon Bostic with 6:27 left in the third quarter. Dalton, who was sliding to give himself up after a short run, lost his helmet in the collision. Backup QB Ben DiNucci relayed after the game that Dalton said he did not remember the hit. Bostic was immediately ejected.



(Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)

Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy was not pleased with his team’s response to the play. No Dallas players appeared to get in the face of Bostic or defend their injured teammate.

“We speak all the time about playing for one another, respecting one another,” McCarthy said. “That was definitely probably not the response you would expect.”

When a reporter asked a follow-up question about addressing that issue with the team, McCarthy snapped back: “I’ve answered the question. Can we go onto the next question, please?”

Did he think the hit was dirty?

“The player was disqualified from the game,” McCarthy responded, “so I think it was, clearly. I think we all understand clearly what a hit is categorized.”

Running back Ezekiel Elliott said he wished the team “would have acted stronger” after seeing the Dalton hit.

McCarthy’s comments probably won’t sit well with all the players on the roster. And this comes after an NFL Network report of players anonymously criticizing the team’s coaching staff.

Dak Prescott doesn’t play defense, and the team was having more than its share of issues taking care of the football when its franchise QB was healthy. But these past two games without Prescott seem to shine a light on just how valuable his leadership is to the franchise. Things have fallen apart, and there’s no sign they’ll get fixed the rest of this season.

“The hardest part is that you lose Dak Prescott on the field, but you lose Dak Prescott in the locker room, in the meeting room,” NFL Fox analyst and former Cowboys star Daryl “Moose” Johnston said during the game broadcast. “You lose him everywhere. And he was the one guy that I think was the leader of this team. Who is going to be that person steps up? Or, really, who are those people going to be that step up? Because you’re not going to replace Dak Prescott with one guy. They need a big gut check.”



(Geoff Burke / USA Today)

Just in case anyone thought Monday night’s 38-10 loss to the Arizona Cardinals was rock bottom, the Cowboys showed Sunday at FedEx Field that no one can be sure if they have played their worst game.

A Washington team that came in averaging 18 points per game had scored 22 with three minutes left in the second quarter. Rookie running back Antonio Gibson didn’t have more than 55 rushing yards in a game this season. He ran for 72 in the first quarter against the Cowboys. Nothing new for a Dallas run defense that has been allowing big numbers all season.

But it’s not fair to be critical of the defense alone. Nothing went well Sunday. The patchwork offensive line played as poorly as expected, if not worse, against Washington’s talented defensive front. Elliott and the run game were nonexistent. Dalton was constantly under pressure and didn’t make much happen when he could get set. When he did find an open receiver, there were drops. Standout rookie wide receiver CeeDee Lamb did not catch a single pass among the five he was targeted on.

He carried the ball once and gained a single yard.

Asked for his immediate thoughts when Dalton went down, Elliott responded: “Just how shitty this year has been.”

Elliott then said there was still time to turn the season around.

There are nine games left, and the Cowboys are only a half-game behind the division-leading Eagles, the team Dallas plays next week. But no one who has watched this team without Prescott honestly believes the Cowboys are on the cusp of playing their best ball and making a run at winning the division.

If anything, it’s probably time to start figuring out what positions need to be addressed most urgently in the draft. If the season ended today, Dallas would have a top-10 pick. A top-five selection is definitely not out of the question.

There’s a decent chance that they’ll get a good look at what they have in DiNucci at Philadelphia next Sunday night. Dalton is likely to be in the concussion protocol all week, similar to Zack Martin, who suffered a concussion Monday night and did not make the trip to Washington.


McCarthy said after the game that making changes on the coaching staff “hasn’t crossed my mind.”

It’s unlikely that the Cowboys will make a significant move before the Nov. 3 trade deadline, so it appears that the coaches and players who were on the field Sunday will be the same ones the rest of the way.

“We can’t keep letting our mistakes hold us down and hold us back because we obviously have made similar mistakes in different forms or fashions,” McCarthy said. “The only ones who are going to get us out of the hole are us as a football team. We’ve got to be able to keep playing, keep playing to win, not playing to not make mistakes.
I felt like I saw some of that today.

“We’re not cutting it loose. We look like we’re holding back at certain points. So we’ve got to execute better, obviously. We knew we needed to play the game a certain way today, and we did not get that done.

“We need to be much better, and we’re running out of time.”

Here are some highlights from what the Cowboys defenders had to say after the game:

 

Shiningstar

DCC 4Life
Joined
Mar 10, 2020
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this is what i was talking about when i said streamlined, and every facet is falling apart.
 
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