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Micah: Cowboys’ defense has to ‘be the light’, can build on hot start vs. Eagles – Patrik Walker, DallasCowboys.com
Micah Parsons had another message that got lost in his Mike McCarthy comments.
“Honestly, it felt great [to be out there],” said the All-Pro pass rusher. “I felt the energy on the sidelines was different. Being back with the guys was different, and you could tell the guys felt the energy that I was bringing. I just wanted to bring some juice to the team and I felt, for the most part, the defense played a pretty good game.”
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That said, what is the message in the locker room — sitting three games below .500?
“We had a great message in chapel this week: You’ve gotta be the light. Even when the other side — the offense’s light— isn’t shining as bright as in the past … we’ve gotta be the offense’s light this time.”
To Parsons, that means the defense will need to figure out a way to take their play from the first two quarters against the Eagles and spread it over each and every single quarter of football from here on out, given the context of a situation that includes quarterback Dak Prescott likely being done for the season with a severe hamstring injury.
There’s currently little else to tie any hope to, as Cooper Rush and the offense moved in the wrong direction against the Eagles.
“Hey, like I said, be the light,” said Parsons. “You can’t let it get to you. Understand that our quarterback is out, things ain’t always going to be how you expect it, and we kind of just gotta be the light; and I just gotta be on the sideline bringing the guys back up [emotionally]. It’s hard, but we’ve gotta do our job.
“… It’s one of [those] years. It’s challenging but we got to be the light for everybody.”
Mike McCarthy, Micah Parsons ‘had a conversation’ after edge rusher’s controversial comments following Cowboys loss – Jori Epstein, Yahoo Sports
Setting up Mike McCarthy to fail this season was always a bad idea for the Cowboys, but the offense being as bad as it is has made the situation in Dallas a disaster.
Micah Parsons generated headlines across social media and talk shows after Sunday night comments about his coach’s work ethic and the relative concern for McCarthy’s job status compared to his teammates’ looming retirement.
“When [something] does create questions for others in the locker room, something that I’ve always done: Conversation has to happen,” McCarthy said. “So Micah and I had a conversation this morning about it. Handled those things as men should handle it.”
Questions about McCarthy’s job status are heightening as the Cowboys sit at 3-6 during the final year of their head coach’s contract.
McCarthy led the Cowboys to three 12-win seasons from 2021 through 2023. But early playoff exits, including a blowout home loss to the Green Bay Packers in January, kept team owner Jerry Jones from extending McCarthy’s contract past the 2024 season.
With eight games to play, the Cowboys have a 1 percent chance of making the playoffs this season, per The Athletic’s playoff predictor.
Blueprint Cowboys Must Follow This Offseason to Become NFL Contender Again – Alex Kay, Bleacher Report
This is going to be one of the most seismic offseasons in the history of the Dallas Cowboys.
Reload the Running Back Platoon
Besides keeping McCarthy, Dallas’ other most head-scratching offseason decision was not taking a promising running back prospect in the 2024 NFL draft. After letting incumbent starter Tony Pollard walk in free agency with no proven depth behind him, the Cowboys instead re-signed the aging and ineffective Ezekiel Elliott to lead their backfield.
The results have been predictably poor.
Dallas is now averaging fewer rushing yards (83.7 per game) than any team besides the Las Vegas Raiders this year. The Cowboys have scored just three touchdowns on the ground across nine games, tying them with the Cleveland Browns for fewest in the league.
Elliott has been particularly horrendous, averaging only 3.2 yards per carry and generating just eight first downs across 54 totes. Rico Dowdle has become Dallas’ top option since he’s the only effective ball-carrier on the roster, but even he leaves something to be desired. He has 374 yards and zero touchdowns on 83 carries.
Dalvin Cook (2.5 YPC), Hunter Luepke (3.2 YPC) and Deuce Vaughn (2.9 YPC) are clearly not viable solutions, either. The Cowboys need to expend some capital on the position during the 2025 NFL draft.
Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty and Ohio State’s Quinshon Judkins—both of whom rank in the top 20 of the B/R Scouting Department’s initial big board—could immediately change the fortunes of this flailing backfield and provide a much-needed spark as rookies.
The Cowboys haven’t used a Day 1 or 2 pick on a running back since selecting Elliott at No. 4 overall in 2016. They’re long overdue to take one early to finally patch this glaring hole.
Mike McCarthy: Cooper Rush will remain starting quarterback for Dallas Cowboys – RJ Ochoa, Blogging The Boys
Trey Lance did come in for Cooper Rush at the end of Week 10’s home loss to the Eagles, but Rush will remain the starter going into a primetime game vs. the Texans next Monday.
The Cowboys aren’t in action again for a full week as they will host the Houston Texans next week on Monday Night Football. That is Cooper Rush in primetime, baby.
In Rush’s defense he has only started one game for the team, an objectively awful one, and that is a very small sample size. On the other hand though, this Cowboys team is, and has been, going nowhere for a long time now which means giving Lance a full and firm opportunity could be in everyone’s best interest.
What’s more is, as has been noted, the Cowboys squandered a fourth-round pick on Lance last August and have yet to give him a start given that they did not have an opportunity until last week. With the season lost for good, why not see what you paid for?
The Dallas Cowboys set an NFL record on Sunday – Shane Taylor, Inside The Star
Just staying in a game would be progress for the Cowboys at this point.
After a decent first half, and by decent I mean they had a chance to at least make a game out of this, the second half started, and when it did the Cowboys quickly found themselves down 20 in a hurry.
What was notable about this 20-point deficit was that it set an NFL record for the most consecutive games in which a team had a 20-point deficit in their home building.
This streak started in the blowout loss at home to the Packers in the playoffs a season ago, and through the first handful of games this year. This team has been down 20 to the Saints, Ravens, Lions and Eagles all at home.
How Does This Happen?
When you look around the NFL, the best teams in football don’t always play like the best, and yesterday you saw the Chiefs needing to block a field goal to beat the Broncos, and the Vikings struggling against the Jaguars with Mac Jones at quarterback.
Yet, when you look at the Cowboys, they are getting beat down by every single team, and they don’t have an answer for anything these teams throw at them.
They can’t even make it a fist fight, rather it turns into a bloodbath before you can finish your lunch or dinner.
From what it sounds like Mike McCarthy has lost this locker room, and things are not sitting well from the outside looking in.
Jerry Jones reveals Cowboys’ plan for Mike McCarthy after awful Week 10 loss – Jerry Trotta, The Landry Hat
Jerry is still not a fan of in-season coaching changes, as dire as the current situation with McCarthy is.
While the Cowboys put up a fight in the first half, they were a laughable watch in the final two quarters.
They turned the ball over on three straight positions in the second half and made the wrong kind of history, becoming the first team in NFL history that has trailed by 20 or more points in five straight home games. It’s always hard to say from a far that a team quit, but it looked like Dallas gave up.
It’s oddly satisfying that Jerry Jones is forced to watch the mess he created, but he still isn’t ready to make a coaching change.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones won’t fire Mike McCarthy after Week 10 loss
While more coaches – and numerous players – deserve blame in addition to Mike McCarthy, any normal franchise would fire a head coach in McCarthy’s shoes.
The Cowboys haven’t been competitive since they beat the Steelers in Week 5. While they technically lost by one score to the 49ers and Falcons, those games were blowouts until Dallas scored in garbage time. If losing by 28 points at home to your biggest rival isn’t enough for McCarthy to lose his job, it is safe to assume he will see out the rest of the season.
20 candidates to replace Mike McCarthy as Cowboys head coach – KD Drummond, The Cowboys Wire
Watching who could be the next head coach of the Cowboys may be more exciting than watching the team on game days right now.
Former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick
For better or worse, the clubhouse leader. Belichick is a huge Prescott fan, Jerry Jones is a huge supporter of retreads and it would be interesting to see if given a competent front office… oh wait.
Commanders OC Kliff Kingsbury
It appears that Kingsbury’s time away after the disaster in Arizona has done him a ton of good. The offense he’s put together in DC for rookie Jayden Daniels is quite impressive and a stark contrast to what he was doing with Kyler Murray in the desert. That transformation should lead to him having a second opportunity not always afforded.
Colorado HC Deion Sanders
After great success at Jackson State with back-to-back SWAC championships, Sanders has quickly brought Colorado from obscurity to relevancy. 1-11 the season before, Sanders brought them to 4-9 in Year 1 and is now 5-2 to start the 2024 season.
Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik
Slowik is immensely intriguing for several reasons. One, the offense he was able to coordinate for rookie CJ Stroud was amazing and he’s continued to add to it in Year 2 despite a putrid offensive line. Slowik is from the Shanahan coaching tree that has had ridiculous success at the NFL level and maybe most importantly, he used to coach defense. That combination just feels like he’d make a tremendous hire.
Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson
What Ben Johnson’s offense and tutelage has been able to do for Jared Goff has been amazing. In the Stafford trade, Goff was expected to be a placeholder until the Lions drafted their guy. Now the clearly limited passer is running one of the league’s best and most innovative offenses. The Lions have the best record in the NFC, and Sunday night’s coordination of a Week 10 comeback win despite Jared Goff throwing five interceptions was the icing on the cake.
There’s a rumor out there that Johnson asked for $15 million a season last cycle. That could be a baseline number, or it could’ve been a number he gave to a franchise he wasn’t truly interested in. Fans should beware taking such reports without the unavailable context.
