The Dallas Cowboys aren’t good enough to even be pretenders

The Dallas Cowboys are 3-3 and only a game behind the Washington Commanders for first place in the NFC East.

The Dallas Cowboys stink.

Sunday’s 47-9 humiliation at the hands of the Detroit Lions was so lopsided that the score somehow flattered Mike McCarthy’s team. It’s the Cowboys’ heaviest home loss since Tom Landry’s farewell season in 1988 and one of their biggest margins of defeat in franchise history. It’s also their fourth home loss in a row dating back to the playoff embarrassment against the Green Bay Packers.

You know it’s bad when the scoreboard has to be blurred out like the goriest bits of a crime scene.

Dallas entered 2024 having finished with 12 wins in each of its previous three years, winning two division titles and a playoff game. Only the Kansas City Chiefs had won more regular season games during that span. It was only logical to assume the Cowboys would once again be in the mix of NFC contenders. There is nothing to indicate that this year’s Cowboys are playoff-caliber, let alone a 12-win squad. With a -42 point differential (good for 25th in the NFL), they’re in the unwanted quadrant of “bad on both sides of the ball.”

Dallas’ offense ranks a pedestrian 25th in EPA/play, below the New York Giants and a far cry from perennial top 10 rankings in previous seasons. Only the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots have a worse red zone touchdown percentage. Their EPA/dropback is worse than the “sim to end” sadness that is the Jacksonville Jaguars. Newly minted $60 million/year quarterback and 2023 MVP runner-up Dak Prescott is tied with Daniel Jones for 23rd in EPA/play. He’s on pace for his worst completion percentage and adjusted net yards per attempt since his second season. Brandin Cooks’ knee infection means there is little depth at wide receiver outside of CeeDee Lamb. Ezekiel Elliott was brought back for... vibes? Nostalgia? It couldn’t have been to improve the rushing offense. In 38 carries, his longest gain is 9 yards and he only has 6 rushing first downs. Rico Dowdle is the new RB1 following the departure of Tony Pollard, and he leads a Cowboys rushing “attack” that’s 28th in success rate and last in total yards and yards per carry. What was once a great Dallas offensive line is experiencing life without Tyron Smith and Tyler Biadasz; it’s been mediocre at best with rookies Tyler Guyton (who was benched for the Lions game), Cooper Beebe, and second-year player Tyler Smith as starters.

Former Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer replaced Dan Quinn as defensive coordinator after Quinn became the Commanders head coach. Quinn regularly fielded top 10 defenses in Dallas, albeit ones that generally struggled to defend the elite offenses in the NFL. Zimmer’s defense is 30th in points allowed, dead last in rushing EPA/play and 22nd against the pass, and that’s after getting a head start against Deshaun Watson and the moribund Cleveland Browns offense in Week 1. Last year’s first-round pick Mazi Smith was supposed to be one of the solutions for the Cowboys’ run defense woes. This Frank Ragnow pancake block sums up his career to date. The secondary, led by Trevon Diggs, has not performed well but has been “spared” in the sense that opponents are running the ball more than throwing. Dallas’ defense was struggling even with DeMarcus Lawrence and Micah Parsons in the lineup; without them, it’s a hopeless cause.

At least the Dallas special teams is outstanding (No. 1 by DVOA). Brandon Aubrey is arguably the NFL’s top kicker and leads the league in field goal attempts, which would be a great stat if the Cowboys were also above average at also scoring touchdowns (spoiler: they’re not).

The Week 7 bye is the only relief in sight for the Cowboys, as it should at least allow Parsons and ball-hawking cornerback DaRon Bland to return for Week 8. They need all of the reinforcements they can get because unlike last year, when they enjoyed one of the league’s easiest strengths of schedule, this year is unforgiving. Their next game is at the San Francisco 49ers, who’ve beaten them three consecutive times, including twice in the playoffs. There are still five division games to play, as well as primetime home dates versus the Houston Texans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Of their remaining opponents, only the New York Giants, Cincinnati Bengals, and Carolina Panthers sit below .500.

Ultimately, the sorry state of the 2024 Cowboys falls at the feet of Jerry Jones, whose 82nd birthday gift to himself was watching the turgid results of his summer of inaction... in action. His only outside free agent acquisitions were 32-year-old linebacker Eric Kendricks, Zeke, and running back Royce Freeman, who was cut in preseason. Jones said of his roster following Dallas’ Week 3 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, “I like our personnel.” He also insisted that Derrick Henry, the NFL’s current rushing yards leader, was too expensive to entertain signing. Sure, Jerry.

The criticisms of Jones’ lack of meaningful roster moves have clearly gotten to him, as evidenced by his contentious Tuesday radio appearance on 105.3 The Fan.

“Listen, let me tell you what I’ll do about it, I will let us sit down and look at the decisions we’ve made over the last several years. Okay? I’ll look at it,” Jones said. “Now if you think I’m interested on a damn phone call with you over the radio and sitting here and throwing all the good out with the dishwater, you’d have got to be smoking something over there this morning. I’m not. And I really don’t—and I don’t even want our listeners listening to me talk about [this]. This is not your job. Your job isn’t to let me go over the reasons that I did something and I’m sorry that I did it. That’s not your job.

“That’s not your job or I’ll get somebody else to ask these questions, men. No, no. I’m not kidding. You’re not going to figure out what the team is doing right or wrong. If you are, or any five or 10 like you, you need to come to this meeting I’m going to today — the 32 teams here. You’re geniuses. Okay? Y’all really think you’re going to sit here with a microphone and tell me all of the things that I’ve done wrong and without going over the rights?”

Jones can be as defensive about his decisions (and seemingly threaten to have radio hosts fired) all he wants, but the brutal truth is that the Cowboys as constructed are not poised to do anything other than book January tee times. They’re getting worked in the trenches on both sides of the ball, and if Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb aren’t performing at an All-Pro level, that offense cannot function. With a daunting set of opponents to come, it is distinctly possible that Dallas will finish last in the NFC East instead of repeating as division champions. While Jerry Jones will continue to run the show until further notice, surely to the chagrin of Cowboys fans at this point, the countdown is on for the end of the Mike McCarthy Era.