Making sense of the Cowboys’ downfall
The Dallas Cowboys suffered the worst loss in the 63-year history of the NFL’s most historic and most valuable franchise on Sunday afternoon. Matt LeFleur, Jordan Love and the rest of the Green Bay Packers completely outclassed America’s Team in every facet of a 48-32 humiliation in Arlington, Texas.
Dak Prescott’s eighth year with the iconic star on his helmet ended with an incomprehensible collapse, wiping away the 17 games of (mostly) excellent football that made up the best season of his career.
Prescott had a phenomenal regular season, particularly in the first half of games. In first halves this year, Prescott averaged 157 passing yards to go along with 26 total touchdowns, four interceptions and a 114 passer rating.
He amassed impressive stats largely through blowout wins against weak opponents, leading the Cowboys to the second-highest point differential in the NFL. Those performances will earn him league MVP votes, and he will likely finish as a finalist for the NFL’s most prestigious individual award.
But all those yards and touchdowns now seem so distant on the other side of a franchise-defining loss. This is more than a playoff loss, it’s more than a bad showing, and it’s more than losing a game Dallas was supposed to comfortably dominate. It’s the latest chapter in a book about falling well short of expectations, and it’s the exigent reality of the Dallas Cowboys.
There are monumental questions surrounding this franchise, and it’s time to answer them, but not before addressing what went so horribly wrong on Sunday.
Who is at fault for Sunday’s loss?
Prescott’s excellence ran out right on schedule, as it always does in the postseason, yet somehow contrary to the expectation. The expectation from this fanbase that this year would finally be different because the regular season felt so different.
But it wasn’t different. He reverted to the form Cowboys fans have now seen too many times in big games, throwing for just 87 yards and one touchdown in a dismal first half. His first interception set up the Packers in the red zone for an easy score, and the second was an momentum-crushing pick-six which turned Dallas’ most promising offensive drive to that point into yet another Green Bay touchdown and an insurmountable 27-0 deficit.
Prescott’s 448 total yards and three touchdowns don’t accurately reflect his performance on Sunday, which was a pressure-induced meltdown against the youngest team to reach the NFL playoffs in half a century. Green Bay also became the first 7-seed to win a playoff game.
But Prescott isn’t the only Cowboy who deserves blame. The head-coaching seat in Dallas is red-hot, and it would be a shocking, indefensible error on behalf of Cowboys’ autocrat Jerry Jones to retain Mike McCarthy for a fifth season.
Maybe the Cowboys underestimated their juvenile Wild Card opponent, or maybe they were looking ahead to the big bad San Francisco 49ers, who eliminated Dallas in each of the last two postseasons. Regardless, Dallas was absolutely unprepared to play and win a playoff game in its own building.
Following a long and successful tenure with the Packers, McCarthy is now 1-3 in the postseason with the Cowboys, with two first-round home losses in the last three years. His successor in Green Bay, Matt LeFleur, set the tone early. The Packers won the coin toss and took the ball, then marched down the field and punched it in with Aaron Jones to take an early lead they never came close to surrendering.
Dallas’ defense, constructed by Dan Quinn and highly-touted in the offseason, was completely lost. The Cowboys couldn’t stop the run, and inexplicably shifted from what had primarily been a man-coverage-focused scheme to a soft zone, which Jordan Love picked apart with ease. Packers receivers were wide open all day and at the worst times, none more so than on a 38-yard touchdown by Luke Musgrave to slam the door on a potential comeback after Dallas had trimmed the lead to 18 in the third quarter.
Quinn’s name has been on the list for a number of NFL head coaching vacancies, and Monday revealed he already has four interviews lined up with other teams. So, perhaps his focus also strayed beyond the preparation for the Cowboys’ home playoff opener, but other teams will certainly reevaluate his candidacy for their jobs after Dallas’ defensive performance Sunday.
Meanwhile, the offense, spearheaded by McCarthy, wasn’t any better until it was far too late. Many questioned Dallas’ decision to part ways with former offensive coordinator Kellen Moore last offseason, but it appeared to be the right decision until Sunday. McCarthy took over play-calling responsibilities and dialed up Prescott’s most productive and efficient season, simultaneously turning CeeDee Lamb into 2023’s best receiver not named Tyreek Hill.
But the engine of this top-three offense, the infallible Prescott-to-Lamb connection, which made up for Dallas’ inconsistent wide receiver depth and unreliable run game all year long, was a square peg in a round hole from the coin toss. Lamb dropped his first two targets and was a non-factor in the first quarter. Both the QB and WR were visibly frustrated and unable to get on the same page. Although this connection ultimately yielded nine completions for over 100 yards and a touchdown, it took 17 targets, and most of the positive production came in garbage time.
Then, the unforced mental mistakes, a telltale sign of poor coaching, for which McCarthy-led teams have always been criticized, reared their ugly head once more on the big stage.
Dallas was flagged inside Green Bay’s 10-yard line for fair catch interference on its first punt of the game, giving the Packers’ offense some unearned breathing room. In the third quarter, the Cowboys ran a bubble screen with Brandin Cooks in motion as a lead blocker, but he and Tony Pollard both looked back for the ball, indicating yet another miscommunication. These were two of the many “little things” the Cowboys can’t ever get right.
Even the Cowboys’ lone first-half touchdown was courtesy of a lucky break. With time running out and no timeouts, Prescott connected with Lamb short of the end zone in the middle of the field. A pass-interference call, which Dallas got, was the only thing that could stop the clock, allowing another chance for the Cowboys to score at the very end of the half. Still, Prescott has to know he can’t complete a pass in bounds in that situation.
Finally, this coaching staff will forever live with a long list of head-scratching “what-ifs” regarding a sorry game plan. It felt like Dallas always made the wrong decision on personnel packages, play selection and passing concepts.
The issues run deeper than an early playoff exit
Once again, the cycle has repeated itself in Dallas. A couple of early season blowouts over the bottom-feeding New York teams validated the level of preseason hype and breathed life into Super Bowl hopes for a team that never deserved them.
Over the following 16 weeks, the Cowboys dropped a couple of games to playoff-caliber opponents, fueling well-justified doubt about this group’s ability to win big games. They closed the regular season by crushing the lowly Washington Commanders to clinch the NFC’s 2-seed and home-field advantage for the first two playoff rounds. The expectations skyrocketed, and with them, the pressure.
Dallas’ history and widespread support make the Cowboys the most talked about team in American sports, even when they’re down. They aren’t responsible for the ever-present spotlight on them, but they are responsible for buying into the hype built on meaningless regular season accomplishments. That star on the helmet creates an aura of entitlement around a team which, in this century, hasn’t earned the right to stand so tall and speak so loud.
Perhaps Jerry Jones perpetuates that culture, unable to stop living in the memory of a bygone dynasty. For years, the Cowboys have failed to escape the pressure created by these misaligned expectations, and they choked away another promising season on Sunday.
Organizational culture starts at the top, and the ownership picture in Dallas isn’t changing. So something else has to. How many times do the Cowboys have to see a season play out just the same way?
Mike McCarthy’s future
The four pillars of an NFL franchise are the owner, the general manager, the head coach, and the quarterback. Jerry Jones is the owner and the GM, and he will be for the foreseeable future. His son, Stephen Jones, who is already heavily involved in the Cowboys’ football-related decision-making processes, will ultimately succeed him. Thus, there’s not much sense in speculating on a change of leadership in the front office.
However, it does fall on Jones to do what is necessary and clean out this coaching staff. Jones is known for being a very loyal owner, sometimes to a fault. He hangs onto and pays second and third contracts to his draft picks, and he allows his coaches a long leash.
In not-so-distant memory, the Jason Garrett era in Dallas mirrored the Mike McCarthy era and lasted longer than most Cowboys fans were willing to endure. In Garrett’s nine seasons as head coach, the Cowboys won the NFC East three times and won just two playoff games. One of those seasons was Prescott’s rookie year, when Dallas won 13 games and proceeded to lose in the first round to none other than the Packers.
Jones can’t prolong the McCarthy era. It’s obvious to everyone else that the Cowboys don’t have strong enough coaching, and their inability to win big games is the evidence. Given how well-positioned the Cowboys were to make an extended playoff run this season, even a second-round exit would likely have warranted a head-coaching change. Maybe McCarthy could have weathered a close loss to a team like the Philadelphia Eagles in the divisional round.
But getting smoked at home by the seventh-seeded Packers in the first round is inexcusable. McCarthy should be fired, and Dan Quinn should be allowed to walk as well. The defense Quinn built in Dallas has looked elite at times over the last three seasons, but it clearly isn’t good enough. A team that scraped into the playoffs just made Quinn’s unit look like a high school defense.
Who the Cowboys choose to replace McCarthy is another conversation. The counter-argument to firing McCarthy is, “who are you going to hire that’s better than him?” That’s a fair question in a lot of cases, but the Cowboys are in a unique window. They can’t afford to languish in mediocrity with the way their roster is constructed.
A strong offensive line has been the soul of this team for a decade, but it can’t last forever. This group, led by future Hall of Famers Tyron Smith and Zack Martin, is getting too old, too expensive, and too injury prone. Plus, Prescott carries a giant salary cap hit, and Dallas is approaching big paydays for Lamb and Micah Parsons.
The bottom line is that the overall roster quality and depth is going to regress very soon. That is why Dallas must take some risk in order to make one more run with this roster. It makes no sense to run it back with McCarthy after coming up so short once again.
Quarterback controversy in Dallas?
The fourth pillar is Dak Prescott, and he’s actually the longest-tenured starting quarterback in the NFL with his current team.
After the loss, Prescott said anyone questioning McCarthy’s job should question his too. Maybe it hadn’t set in yet that his job is in fact, in question. Or at least it should be. Prescott’s regular season set him up for a massive contract extension this offseason, barring an extraordinary regression in the playoffs. But that’s what happened.
With one year remaining on Prescott’s current contract, the Cowboys absolutely should not extend him right now. Let him play one more year. Make him prove he can get it done in the playoffs, and if he does, then consider an extension. Dallas was prepared to give him record-breaking money anyway, so it’s not like they risk losing him in a future free agency window to a higher bidder.
But, even if that is a risk, so what? This was Prescott’s eighth season. He’s 2-5 in the playoffs and several of those losses fall heavily on him. It’s very unlikely he suddenly becomes a quarterback the Cowboys win because of rather than one they simply win with. The Cowboys should know what they have with Prescott, and they should also know that he isn’t good enough to take them where they want to go.
Furthermore, Prescott’s contract ends at the same time as Lamb’s and Parsons’ contracts, though Dallas will surely pick up the fifth-year option on Parsons’ rookie deal, delaying his payday by a year.
It’s hard to imagine that the decision to trade for Trey Lance wasn’t somewhat of a contingency plan for a future that doesn’t involve Prescott. If Lance isn’t capable of becoming a franchise quarterback, then the Cowboys need to start drafting quarterbacks and plan to build around Lamb and Parsons. They must begin to prepare for the next decade.
It’s time to close the book on the Mike McCarthy era. If a new coach can’t elevate the Cowboys past perennial disappointment, then it’s time to close the book on Dak Prescott as well.