Not that anybody thought that they could, but the Dallas Cowboys will in no way be competing for the NFC East this year.
The 2024 Dallas Cowboys will go into mid-November still searching for a home win, and following Sunday’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles to fall to 3-6, a touchdown on home turf for the first time in eight quarters. In a week six loss to the Lions that was likely Dak Prescott’s final home game of the season, the Cowboys were handed the worst ever loss under Jerry Jones’ ownership 47-9, only managing three field goals. Here in week ten with Cooper Rush making his first start of the season, the Cowboys kicked two first half field goals and were shutout in the second half. It’s all gone from bad to worse for the third place team in the division right now.
As if it wasn’t bad enough the Cowboys chose to enter the season with Mike McCarthy very publicly being on the final year of his contract, the issues that come with the HC’s “lame duck” status are being made infinitely worse by how anemic an offense McCarthy calls the plays for has looked. All of it is vastly beyond the excuse that the Cowboys are without Prescott, who beat the Browns, Giants, and Steelers earlier in the year with a combined five touchdowns in these wins, but also eight interceptions across eight games.
Tim Heitman-Imagn Images
The Cowboys welcomed an Eagles team into AT&T Stadium on Sunday that has made a living off of letting lesser teams hang around deep into the fourth quarter this year. An Eagles team that was 0-3 under Nick Sirianni in Arlington, and had not won on the road at their NFC East rival since November of 2017. The Cowboys made good on keeping this game close in the first half as they’ve done for much of the season, but were again outclassed for the entire closing 30 minutes, allowing Philadelphia to comfortably leave no doubt they are out to win the division now at 7-2.
Once again it was a fatal sequence that started with the offense failing to possess the ball at all that led to the Eagles building an insurmountable lead. By taking their first two-score lead on a third quarter Johnny Wilson touchdown working against Jourdan Lewis in coverage, the Eagles were on their way to ensuring the Cowboys would trail by at least 20 in all of their home games this season. Wilson’s touchdown came after the Cowboys went three and out with their first possession of the half, and a Jalen Hurts touchdown to cap off an 83-yard drive following the next Cowboys three and out was checkmate at 28-6.
The Eagles added two field goals, both off of Cowboys fumbles, in the fourth quarter just to further the embarrassment and match the winning margin from that previous 2017 meeting when they won 37-9. The Cowboys kicked three first half field goals in that game, but just two in this most recent forgettable chapter of what should be a fierce NFC East rivalry.
Six points (although via a touchdown and missed Dan Bailey PAT, not two field goals) would be enough for the Cowboys to beat the Eagles later in that 2017 season when they won the season finale in Philadelphia 6-0 on a fourth quarter Brice Butler score. This current Cowboys team has shown no capabilities of winning a similar rockfight by leaning that hard on Mike Zimmer’s defense, which did welcome back Micah Parsons and did their best to stand tall for large stretches of the game.
The offense is just so uncompetitive at the moment, with the head coach having to be the face of it sans a starting QB, for this team to be taken seriously in almost any of their remaining eight games. The Cowboys did some things well in this game, but they were all greatly overshadowed by mistakes that have not been corrected at all since the season began. This team has a nonexistent path to win games right now, and a frighteningly predictable one to lose a lot more before this lost season actually concludes.
Let’s get to a few further notes on how the Cowboys dropped to 0-4 at home, before their next opportunity to get off the hook comes in week 11 on a Monday night versus the Texans. At least they won’t be battling the sun in that game.
Tim Heitman-Imagn Images
- All season long, the difference in the Cowboys defense when able to play aggressive and downhill as opposed to on their heels has been extremely noticeable. In the first half, the Cowboys found ways to do this in neutral situations against an Eagles offense that presents one of the best challenges in these spots across the entire NFL. With the rushing threat of both Saquon Barkley or Jalen Hurts available on every single play along with the Eagles’ top-end receivers, creating negative plays against Philly does not come easy.
Dallas got to Hurts for five sacks in the first half, more than they’ve had in all but one entire game this season, got a red zone takeaway with Trevon Diggs’ endzone interception, and recovered a fumble all in the first two quarters. The fact the Cowboys’ own offense was only able to score points after one of these takeaways was devastating, giving away a possession of their own with Ezekiel Elliott’s fumble at the six-yard line. The fumble ended a 13 play drive that gained 63 yards for the Cowboys, their fifth drive of what would turn out to be 13 on the afternoon. Finishing with 146 total yards, the 83 yards the Cowboys gained across 12 other drives was all the Eagles needed to keep this game in hand.
The Cowboys were hardly good enough in this game to put any game pressure on a team that’s shown they’re not the best at handling it this season. This is a team that lacks preparation, focus, and discipline as they committed five penalties with four of them giving the Eagles a first down.
Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images
One of the noticeable differences in how Zimmer’s defense was able to throw some different looks at Kellen Moore’s offense was by having Micah Parsons back as a pass rusher. By lining up Parsons as a defensive end, Zimmer was able to dial up simulated pressures but actually drop linebackers into coverage and trust the front to get home more. Players like Osa Odighizuwa flashed much more than in previous weeks without Parsons, playing to take advantage of the one-on-one blocks they’ll see with all of the attention going to #11.
Carl Lawson and DeMarvion Overshown had back-to-back sacks in the first quarter to end the Eagles’ first drive following a prompt Cowboys three and out to start the game. The Cowboys offense only stayed on the field for one play following a Philly punt though, Cooper Rush’s fumbled snap, and any positive momentum the defense was building was halted four plays later on Hurts’ first rushing touchdown from a yard out.
The big play of this short drive for the Eagles was Saquon Barkley getting away from Eric Kendricks on a pass out of the backfield and converting a third down. Barkley has been incredible in the open field all season, but the bigger issue for Dallas is opposing offenses knowing they can get these types of throws against Kendricks whenever they want. Add in how rookie Caelen Carson has become a target in the absence of DaRon Bland, so much so that he was taken out for safety Israel Mukuamu in the second half, and the Cowboys have the furthest thing from the strength in the secondary they expected for Zimmer and Al Harris. Credit to both coaches for adjusting and realizing the strength of this defense is up front, even though the Cowboys are also still limited here without DeMarcus Lawrence or Marshawn Kneeland, but there is still far too much open turf for opposing offenses to work with when they play against the Cowboys.
Photo by Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
This team does not limit big plays well enough, or do anything remotely close to create any themselves, leading to a differential that McCarthy regularly points to as a reason for failure.
- Another team identity point that McCarthy has been a broken record about is at least having the ability to possess the ball on offense and play with some balance. The Cowboys set themselves up for failure here without even mentioning anything the Eagles did against them.
After the Cowboys found success running the ball with their clear top back Rico Dowdle on a field goal drive where Dowdle had five rushes for 26 yards, the Cowboys went back to their stagnant pass game and threw a third-down screen to CeeDee Lamb on the possession following Diggs’ interception.
Later, after a Micah Parsons strip sack gave the Cowboys the ball at the Eagles’ six-yard line on, they gained just one yard in three plays and settled for another field goal. McCarthy tried to go back to the run game on third down to likely set up a manageable fourth-down attempt and go for it. Running behind Zack Martin has been a foolproof play call in these spots long enough for the right guard to be a future Hall of Fame inductee, but given his struggles this season is not as automatic. Dowdle lost two yards when Martin was beat by Jalen Carter, and forced the Cowboys into a second field goal that would be their final points of the game.
There is not a single thing that comes easy for the Cowboys offense right now. Even running to the line to gain to give themselves a chance on third-down passing situations is hard. Finding targets that don’t feel incredibly forced for Lamb is a challenge. Rush did not complete a pass longer than ten yards in this game. The level of failure on this side of the ball given what the Cowboys were offensively just one year ago when they won 12 games and went undefeated at home in the regular season cannot be understated.
Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The Eagles built a 7-6 lead that should have been a deficit if the Cowboys could find a way to put the ball in the endzone. They taking quick advantage of more missed tackles and sloppy play from the Cowboys defense to end their longest scoring drive of the game of 84 yards with a touchdown. Sure, even after the extra point the Eagles were still only up by one score, but in the most tenuous of ways. The Cowboys were now in the all-too-familiar position of needing to find a way to score and get defensive stops if they ever wanted to lead in this game, and neither thing happened.
Instead, the second half turned into an exhibition of who the Cowboys could call off the bench to at least get a look at. Trey Lance came in for six pass attempts over Rush at different times and looked ineffective as a QB unsure of what he was being asked to do. There was no concentrated effort by the Cowboys to have packages for Lance that might catch the Eagles off guard, and calling him off the bench in this way just made things worse. As mentioned, Mukuamu replaced Carson as a cornerback, despite his natural position being at safety. If this is something the Cowboys consider sticking with until Bland is healthy, it leaves them with ongoing questions at both safety spots as Malik Hooker struggles to tackle and Donovan Wilson continues to get picked on in coverage.
It is truly unfathomable the current state these Cowboys are in, somehow finding a way to blow up the expectation for how bad any team should look with a backup QB. They were lost and struggling even with Prescott, and didn’t find new hope with Rush who lost his second career start to the Eagles on Sunday. The only thing left to play for coming into this game was seeing how the Cowboys fared in division play again, an area they’ve been very successful for a long time. It turns out, the Cowboys’ previous win 20-15 at the Giants was as hollow as many expected, as they now sit at 1-1 in the NFC East with a much more convincing loss to the Eagles. They are only one game better in the win column than that Giants team they squeaked by in week four that’s now lost five straight, including the last international game of the season Sunday morning in Germany to the Panthers.
The Cowboys have lost four straight themselves for the first time since McCarthy’s first year in 2020, also the last time they finished third in the division. They have not finished last in the division since 2015, another backup QB season when Tony Romo went down in week two. This 2024 campaign feels immeasurably worse than any of these past low marks for the Cowboys though, as the damage they’ve done to erase any thought that some of these same players and coaches were a part of 12-win seasons the last three years feels hard to repair anytime soon.