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DCC 4Life
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Morning After Week 16 - Boys' Reality Bites
With a strong dose of truth applied, Dallas again sees how far they are away in '24.
Bob Sturm
Dec 30, 2024
It was probably best this way.
I know nobody likes to get demolished in Philadelphia in a numbingly dire performance in which the Dallas Cowboys looked just as inept and understaffed as at any point in 2024. Nobody wants to lose the turnover battle that decisively and to be absolutely dominated and humiliated at the home of their hated rival. Absolutely nobody wants that to be the final taste in their mouth away from home for what might even be an entire era of Dallas Cowboys football (more on that below).
But, to be fair, it was probably best this way.
Because now, after a 41-7 beatdown at the hands of the Eagles where almost nothing looked close to good enough, we can remember 2024 for what it truly was—not the warm and somewhat fuzzy feelings of the final month or so where this team was able to battle its tail off and have some people justifying that maybe it wasn’t that bad after all this year.
This was the fifth time that the Cowboys lost a game this season by 24 points or more. Twenty-four points in the NFL is an absolute blowout and not terribly competitive in any way, shape, or form. I admit it is also arbitrary, but it constitutes a game where you lose by a mile and you cannot justify an “if only” detail in the slightest.
The Cowboys have lost five times by 24 points or more this season, and that leads the NFL. The only team that can hold a candle to that is the Carolina Panthers, who have lost four such games. The entire rest of the NFL? Two or fewer.
I believe this is the stat that we should probably take with us into the offseason. With one game to go, the Cowboys have been absolutely boat-raced now five different times:
Week 2 versus New Orleans was 44-19. Week 6 against those Lions, 47-9. Then, in Week 10, the Eagles visited, and it was 34-6. And for a fourth consecutive time, it was at home against the Texans the following week, 34-10. And finally, a road game yesterday in Philadelphia.
This, of course, does not even include the Baltimore game, which had a furious fourth-quarter rally, but make no mistake, that game was 28-6 in the fourth quarter before the Cowboys offered some cosmetics to make it look nice in the historical record.
To lose by 24, you are unable to get anything close to accomplished in your design. You are unable to play competent offense OR defense, and you are just trying to get the game over with by halftime. Again, this is not college football. In the NFL, this never happens, and Dallas has been the worst team in football at this particular item. And trust me, if it is just you and Carolina who own this category, you have wandered well off course.
But I just want to say, as we all suffered through that mess yesterday, that it is probably best that we have one of these fresh on our minds (who knows, I suppose there is still time for one more next week against Washington) to remind us of how dire and pathetic this team truly seems to be.
And yes, I understand that this thing really disintegrated into nothingness when the Cowboys lost Dak Prescott and others along the way—with CeeDee Lamb’s very noticeable absence this week being the straw that evidently broke the camel’s back—but I would submit to you that there were enough of these disasters with nearly everyone present earlier in our year that we cannot apply much lipstick to this pig of a season.
How many times have we seen a slightly different version of yesterday’s game?
Dallas starts the game with a promising drive followed by a brain-dead throw by Cooper Rush that turned into a comically easy Pick-6 by CJ Gardner-Johnson as he returned the kindness 69 yards for a touchdown. Then an answer by the Cowboys to make it 7-7. Both teams then punted back and forth to each other four times, and the familiar sequence followed on ten consecutive drives:
Eagles - Touchdown (14-7)
Cowboys - Fumble (on 1st play)
Eagles - Field Goal (17-7)
Cowboys - Interception
Eagles - Touchdown (24-7)
Halftime
Eagles - Field Goal (27-7)
Cowboys - Punt (zero yard drive)
Eagles - Touchdown (34-7)
Cowboys - Fumble
Eagles - Touchdown (41-7)
So, if you are scoring along at home, that is six Eagles drives—none with a starting QB and the final two with QB3 in the game—that scored each time. Four touchdowns and two field goals in six drives for 34 points in about two quarters. And then Dallas, with four drives of its own, managed to offer three giveaways and a punt.
Some were pointing out the scuffles and small fights that broke out here and there in this battle as more evidence of a frisky team that has refused to quit, but I don’t see a ton of value there when your guys lose two games to the Eagles by a combined score of 75-13. Yes, there are bad seasons and bad breaks and such, but 75-13 against a team that you have been using as an NFC East measuring stick is a very rough reality that we probably shouldn’t run from too quickly. We probably need to face the music here, as many have started to talk themselves into a softer summary of this disaster.
“They won’t quit,” “they are starting to run the ball better,” and “see what a difference Micah makes when he returns” can all be true and yet can all just be small details that fall under a much larger umbrella. And that massive canopy should be repeating at full volume just how incredible it is to be blown out over and over in a league where even the very worst teams seldom lose by this much, this often.
That primary message is why I wrote several times in my notes as I watched this debacle in Philly, “it probably is best that we experience this one more time to remind us of how bad things truly have been this year.”
They got smoked. It wasn’t close nor competitive, and even playing against an opponent that looks flawed and somewhat disinterested at times, the Cowboys did very little on Sunday that would resemble a team that should earn any level of our trust or belief in what they are building. And since this game was pretty meaningless, I will fall back on the totality of this ’24 campaign to suggest that none of us should be crossing our fingers that they “run it back” with hope in their hearts for better health next time.
I believe that Mike McCarthy is a very good NFL coach. I really do. And I get very beaten down by Cowboys media that seem to have never given him the benefit of the doubt on any of the circumstances that he and his many predecessors deal with. It seems that some of the local scribes are so taken with Stockholm Syndrome that many will fall for the Jones family plot of blaming the next head coach for everything and accepting the front office tomfoolery as “the way it is around here” over and over again.
Surely, if we can just hire a new head coach to offer the fresh coat of paint, then we can blame him in 18 months when things follow the same patterns of the last 30 years, right? This is the burden of 10,000 days, and this was the fate of everyone from Barry Switzer through Bill Parcells and all the way to today. The media controls this narrative and influences the public, and before long, more people think the Cowboys head coach is the true dunce while the front office skates back quietly to count their money. They are not held accountable, and therefore nothing changes.
I have worn this path out so much that I will resist the urge to do it again here, but I do want to say that so much of this season was incompetence of the highest order that has nothing to do with any past, present, or future head coach here. The contract fiascos that apparently halted any team upgrades the entire offseason were pretty bothersome reminders again yesterday. Here are the Eagles, with just as many huge earners on their roster and just as many complex contracts, upgrading their roster from free agency, turning over their coaching staff, and refusing to rest until they thought they had fixed what went wrong for them in 2023.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9be2e148-19c6-43e9-b0ef-f08f95d76add_1024x683.jpeg
Not just Saquon Barkley, a man who went over 2,000 yards rushing in this game and could absolutely be the league MVP if we still voted for RBs, but LB Zack Baun is one of their best defensive players, and he was available for next to nothing. The moves for Bryce Huff, CJ Gardner-Johnson, and Kenny Pickett all served a purpose this season, and even a trade for Jahan Dotson in August was attempted, but that hasn’t done much. The best acquisition was Barkley, but don’t overlook the job done by new DC Vic Fangio as he has transformed their defense into a powerhouse very quickly (as we feared he probably would since he has made a career of that).
Eagles GM Howie Roseman dominated Jerry and Stephen so badly in this offseason that 41-7 would probably be flattering. That isn’t to say the Eagles GM doesn’t make mistakes, because there were a load of moves he made that quickly failed and he moved on. But the point is that he doesn’t stop building and improving. He keeps trying everything. And Dallas’ front office? I am not sure they tried much of anything this year.
So, I guess where we should address today in this space as we conclude is about this issue of what is next for Mike McCarthy and the Cowboys. I have been asked 100 times and in a dozen different ways if I think he should be back and if I think he will be back.
Should he be back? It is very difficult to suggest that this must happen. I know with a podium like this I should be pounding the table one direction or the other about letting a good football man walk out that door. Am I pushing for his firing? Am I demanding an extension? Well, to be honest, I don’t feel particularly strong in either direction. You can do worse than Mike, but you can also do better. He has had five seasons, and to keep him, you would probably need a three- or four-year contract, and I just can’t tell you in good conscience that this must happen.
At the same time, will he be back? Well, this one is fascinating because everyone has told us it was one way, but it was actually more complex than some binary yes/no from the Jones family.
I was asked Sunday night if McCarthy is getting fired, so let me make this clear here: you cannot fire someone who is not under contract. And in one week, the Cowboys have no coach under contract. The window to fire Mike McCarthy is closed unless you want to fire someone with a few days left on their deal, and we know from the Jason Garrett fiasco that the Jones family doesn’t like to do that. They would rather allow him to pack his stuff and leave quietly.
Do the Cowboys have a better option than McCarthy, or are they planning on bringing him back? I wish I had a better lean on this one. The thing is, there are two parties that get to have a say in this matter. The Jones family has to act first, but then Mike will have a say, and I wouldn’t be shocked if he thanks them for their time and wanders off to free agency.
If Mike McCarthy returns, it is because he wants to be back. This will allow him leverage to get a contract to stay or to be strongly considered for one of several head coaching jobs that are out there and despite what my Dallas media colleagues might tell you, he is still a pretty strong name for some of these jobs that are open in a week. He has options and he likely will have some good ones with a fresh start and a better front office. The Saints? The Bears? The Jets? He probably didn’t just hire Don Yee for nothing.
The point to all of this is the following: yesterday was brutal and this season has been plenty of that variety. The Cowboys have major decisions to make and there is not one that solves even half the issues. If the head coach returns, we should not be shocked. But, I have some serious doubts that keeping everything like it currently is makes any sense on any level.
This year has been as rough a year for Cowboys football as we have endured in quite a while. Sometimes, you wish you could just yank the cord out of the wall and reset everything. If you could, including the ownership and front office, I would recommend that as the quickest road to fixing this mess.
With a strong dose of truth applied, Dallas again sees how far they are away in '24.
Bob Sturm
Dec 30, 2024
It was probably best this way.
I know nobody likes to get demolished in Philadelphia in a numbingly dire performance in which the Dallas Cowboys looked just as inept and understaffed as at any point in 2024. Nobody wants to lose the turnover battle that decisively and to be absolutely dominated and humiliated at the home of their hated rival. Absolutely nobody wants that to be the final taste in their mouth away from home for what might even be an entire era of Dallas Cowboys football (more on that below).
But, to be fair, it was probably best this way.
Because now, after a 41-7 beatdown at the hands of the Eagles where almost nothing looked close to good enough, we can remember 2024 for what it truly was—not the warm and somewhat fuzzy feelings of the final month or so where this team was able to battle its tail off and have some people justifying that maybe it wasn’t that bad after all this year.
This was the fifth time that the Cowboys lost a game this season by 24 points or more. Twenty-four points in the NFL is an absolute blowout and not terribly competitive in any way, shape, or form. I admit it is also arbitrary, but it constitutes a game where you lose by a mile and you cannot justify an “if only” detail in the slightest.
The Cowboys have lost five times by 24 points or more this season, and that leads the NFL. The only team that can hold a candle to that is the Carolina Panthers, who have lost four such games. The entire rest of the NFL? Two or fewer.
I believe this is the stat that we should probably take with us into the offseason. With one game to go, the Cowboys have been absolutely boat-raced now five different times:
Week 2 versus New Orleans was 44-19. Week 6 against those Lions, 47-9. Then, in Week 10, the Eagles visited, and it was 34-6. And for a fourth consecutive time, it was at home against the Texans the following week, 34-10. And finally, a road game yesterday in Philadelphia.
This, of course, does not even include the Baltimore game, which had a furious fourth-quarter rally, but make no mistake, that game was 28-6 in the fourth quarter before the Cowboys offered some cosmetics to make it look nice in the historical record.
To lose by 24, you are unable to get anything close to accomplished in your design. You are unable to play competent offense OR defense, and you are just trying to get the game over with by halftime. Again, this is not college football. In the NFL, this never happens, and Dallas has been the worst team in football at this particular item. And trust me, if it is just you and Carolina who own this category, you have wandered well off course.
But I just want to say, as we all suffered through that mess yesterday, that it is probably best that we have one of these fresh on our minds (who knows, I suppose there is still time for one more next week against Washington) to remind us of how dire and pathetic this team truly seems to be.
And yes, I understand that this thing really disintegrated into nothingness when the Cowboys lost Dak Prescott and others along the way—with CeeDee Lamb’s very noticeable absence this week being the straw that evidently broke the camel’s back—but I would submit to you that there were enough of these disasters with nearly everyone present earlier in our year that we cannot apply much lipstick to this pig of a season.
How many times have we seen a slightly different version of yesterday’s game?
Dallas starts the game with a promising drive followed by a brain-dead throw by Cooper Rush that turned into a comically easy Pick-6 by CJ Gardner-Johnson as he returned the kindness 69 yards for a touchdown. Then an answer by the Cowboys to make it 7-7. Both teams then punted back and forth to each other four times, and the familiar sequence followed on ten consecutive drives:
Eagles - Touchdown (14-7)
Cowboys - Fumble (on 1st play)
Eagles - Field Goal (17-7)
Cowboys - Interception
Eagles - Touchdown (24-7)
Halftime
Eagles - Field Goal (27-7)
Cowboys - Punt (zero yard drive)
Eagles - Touchdown (34-7)
Cowboys - Fumble
Eagles - Touchdown (41-7)
So, if you are scoring along at home, that is six Eagles drives—none with a starting QB and the final two with QB3 in the game—that scored each time. Four touchdowns and two field goals in six drives for 34 points in about two quarters. And then Dallas, with four drives of its own, managed to offer three giveaways and a punt.
Some were pointing out the scuffles and small fights that broke out here and there in this battle as more evidence of a frisky team that has refused to quit, but I don’t see a ton of value there when your guys lose two games to the Eagles by a combined score of 75-13. Yes, there are bad seasons and bad breaks and such, but 75-13 against a team that you have been using as an NFC East measuring stick is a very rough reality that we probably shouldn’t run from too quickly. We probably need to face the music here, as many have started to talk themselves into a softer summary of this disaster.
“They won’t quit,” “they are starting to run the ball better,” and “see what a difference Micah makes when he returns” can all be true and yet can all just be small details that fall under a much larger umbrella. And that massive canopy should be repeating at full volume just how incredible it is to be blown out over and over in a league where even the very worst teams seldom lose by this much, this often.
That primary message is why I wrote several times in my notes as I watched this debacle in Philly, “it probably is best that we experience this one more time to remind us of how bad things truly have been this year.”
They got smoked. It wasn’t close nor competitive, and even playing against an opponent that looks flawed and somewhat disinterested at times, the Cowboys did very little on Sunday that would resemble a team that should earn any level of our trust or belief in what they are building. And since this game was pretty meaningless, I will fall back on the totality of this ’24 campaign to suggest that none of us should be crossing our fingers that they “run it back” with hope in their hearts for better health next time.
I believe that Mike McCarthy is a very good NFL coach. I really do. And I get very beaten down by Cowboys media that seem to have never given him the benefit of the doubt on any of the circumstances that he and his many predecessors deal with. It seems that some of the local scribes are so taken with Stockholm Syndrome that many will fall for the Jones family plot of blaming the next head coach for everything and accepting the front office tomfoolery as “the way it is around here” over and over again.
Surely, if we can just hire a new head coach to offer the fresh coat of paint, then we can blame him in 18 months when things follow the same patterns of the last 30 years, right? This is the burden of 10,000 days, and this was the fate of everyone from Barry Switzer through Bill Parcells and all the way to today. The media controls this narrative and influences the public, and before long, more people think the Cowboys head coach is the true dunce while the front office skates back quietly to count their money. They are not held accountable, and therefore nothing changes.
I have worn this path out so much that I will resist the urge to do it again here, but I do want to say that so much of this season was incompetence of the highest order that has nothing to do with any past, present, or future head coach here. The contract fiascos that apparently halted any team upgrades the entire offseason were pretty bothersome reminders again yesterday. Here are the Eagles, with just as many huge earners on their roster and just as many complex contracts, upgrading their roster from free agency, turning over their coaching staff, and refusing to rest until they thought they had fixed what went wrong for them in 2023.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9be2e148-19c6-43e9-b0ef-f08f95d76add_1024x683.jpeg
Not just Saquon Barkley, a man who went over 2,000 yards rushing in this game and could absolutely be the league MVP if we still voted for RBs, but LB Zack Baun is one of their best defensive players, and he was available for next to nothing. The moves for Bryce Huff, CJ Gardner-Johnson, and Kenny Pickett all served a purpose this season, and even a trade for Jahan Dotson in August was attempted, but that hasn’t done much. The best acquisition was Barkley, but don’t overlook the job done by new DC Vic Fangio as he has transformed their defense into a powerhouse very quickly (as we feared he probably would since he has made a career of that).
Eagles GM Howie Roseman dominated Jerry and Stephen so badly in this offseason that 41-7 would probably be flattering. That isn’t to say the Eagles GM doesn’t make mistakes, because there were a load of moves he made that quickly failed and he moved on. But the point is that he doesn’t stop building and improving. He keeps trying everything. And Dallas’ front office? I am not sure they tried much of anything this year.
So, I guess where we should address today in this space as we conclude is about this issue of what is next for Mike McCarthy and the Cowboys. I have been asked 100 times and in a dozen different ways if I think he should be back and if I think he will be back.
Should he be back? It is very difficult to suggest that this must happen. I know with a podium like this I should be pounding the table one direction or the other about letting a good football man walk out that door. Am I pushing for his firing? Am I demanding an extension? Well, to be honest, I don’t feel particularly strong in either direction. You can do worse than Mike, but you can also do better. He has had five seasons, and to keep him, you would probably need a three- or four-year contract, and I just can’t tell you in good conscience that this must happen.
At the same time, will he be back? Well, this one is fascinating because everyone has told us it was one way, but it was actually more complex than some binary yes/no from the Jones family.
I was asked Sunday night if McCarthy is getting fired, so let me make this clear here: you cannot fire someone who is not under contract. And in one week, the Cowboys have no coach under contract. The window to fire Mike McCarthy is closed unless you want to fire someone with a few days left on their deal, and we know from the Jason Garrett fiasco that the Jones family doesn’t like to do that. They would rather allow him to pack his stuff and leave quietly.
Do the Cowboys have a better option than McCarthy, or are they planning on bringing him back? I wish I had a better lean on this one. The thing is, there are two parties that get to have a say in this matter. The Jones family has to act first, but then Mike will have a say, and I wouldn’t be shocked if he thanks them for their time and wanders off to free agency.
If Mike McCarthy returns, it is because he wants to be back. This will allow him leverage to get a contract to stay or to be strongly considered for one of several head coaching jobs that are out there and despite what my Dallas media colleagues might tell you, he is still a pretty strong name for some of these jobs that are open in a week. He has options and he likely will have some good ones with a fresh start and a better front office. The Saints? The Bears? The Jets? He probably didn’t just hire Don Yee for nothing.
The point to all of this is the following: yesterday was brutal and this season has been plenty of that variety. The Cowboys have major decisions to make and there is not one that solves even half the issues. If the head coach returns, we should not be shocked. But, I have some serious doubts that keeping everything like it currently is makes any sense on any level.
This year has been as rough a year for Cowboys football as we have endured in quite a while. Sometimes, you wish you could just yank the cord out of the wall and reset everything. If you could, including the ownership and front office, I would recommend that as the quickest road to fixing this mess.
