The All-Pro won’t let Week 1 ruin his confidence.
Prescott also doesn’t feel the need to pull his No. 1 receiver to the side for a long dialogue of any sort, especially seeing how hard he’s already being on himself.
“There wasn’t a big, long talk we needed to have,” Prescott said. “He took ownership and accountability. He shut me up in the same sense of taking accountability. It wasn’t just those plays. There are throws I want back. But it’s Game 1, and he’s a guy who’s gonna make those plays. We’re not gonna get down on him or lose confidence in him, by any means.
“He will make those plays [in the future].”
To that point, Lamb himself sounded as if he was equal parts disappointed and seething, seeing opportunities to break the game open when it mattered most literally slip through his fingers on more than one occasion.
So much so that he issued a warning to the entire league.
“I will tell you that if you think I’m not coming back 80 times harder than this — you’ve got another thing coming,” the four-time Pro Bowler said. ”… God has a mysterious way of humbling folks, and I did come in with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder. Lesson well learned. I deserve everything that comes with it.
… The [drops] down the stretch really hurt me a lot because I’ve prayed for those types of things. But, again, it’s Game 1. I’ll be back. I just hope everybody else is ready.”
Cowboys, Jerry Jones praise Brian Schottenheimer after debut despite loss – Chris Bumbaca, USA Today
Brian Schottenheimer passed with flying colors in his first game as head coach.
PHILADELPHIA — The opening night reviews are in. And if Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is the No. 1 critic for Brian Schottenheimer, then the first-year head coach shouldn’t have much to worry about.
Even if his team came out on the wrong side of a 24-20 decision on the road to the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
“He had this team ready to play,” Jones said after the game. “He had them prepared on all sides of the ball. He had them mentally ready to play. I’m just sorry that when it got down to it and we needed to make those plays we didn’t get ‘em made. But we all know we played a good team out there tonight.
“I give Brian, I give his staff all the credit in the world.”
Micah Parsons-less Cowboys emerge from narrow loss to Eagles with same unanswered questions – Mike Jones, The Athletic
The more things change the more they stay the same.
PHILADELPHIA — Sam Williams had Jalen Hurts right where he wanted him.
The Philadelphia Eagles quarterback had broken the pocket and eluded two Dallas Cowboys defenders. But Williams — one of the young defensive ends charged with collectively filling the massive shoes left behind by the All-Pro pass-rusher Micah Parsons — had the angle on Hurts on that early-second quarter third-down play deep in Dallas territory. The third-year pro lunged at Hurts and even got his hands on him. Williams had the quarterback. But then he didn’t. Hurts — apparently still donning the cape that he wore last February en route to Super Bowl MVP honors — squirted free of Williams’ grasp, zigged this way, zagged that way and picked up a first down. Two plays later, with all of his receivers covered, Hurts again spotted daylight and outraced Cowboys defenders 8 yards to the end zone for his second touchdown of the first half.
It was, as it turned out, that kind of night for the Cowboys, who aimed to kick off another franchise reset with an upset victory, but instead fell 24-20 to the NFC East rival Eagles Thursday night at Lincoln Financial Field.
Williams had his narrow misses (including another in the fourth quarter). But that was basically the theme of the night for Dallas. Quarterback Dak Prescott and his offense repeatedly appeared on the verge of something big. But then came hiccups in the form of an ill-timed penalty, a third-quarter Miles Sanders fumble in Philadelphia territory or dropped passes by leading wide receiver CeeDee Lamb. Multiple times. Lamb recorded a game-high seven catches for 110 yards. But he also had four uncharacteristic drops, including two on the Cowboys’ final possession, which began with 3:02 left and victory within reach and ended with the ball bouncing off the wideout’s outstretched hands on fourth down with two minutes left.
“Like they say, this game is a game of inches,” Williams said, summing up the night and all of the woulda-coulda-shoulda moments. “But, we’re just gonna keep going, and eventually, you know, we’re gonna get there. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so at the end of the day, we’ve got to worry about the Giants now. This game is over. We’re gonna go review it, and then it’s over.”
Cowboys failed to open Eagles’ gifts, but still left Philly with a nice surprise – Tim Cowlishaw, Dallas Morning News
The Cowboys can certainly hold their heads high after a tough season-opening loss.
The name Ben VanSumeren probably means as much to you as it does to me, which is to say very little. But he’s the Eagles’ only fullback and they lost him for the night Thursday when he hurt his knee on the opening kickoff.
He’s the one who was lying on the ground and being attended to when Dak Prescott and Jalen Carter had their unusual spit-off, which resulted in the Eagles losing their most disruptive defensive player for the night. And on top of that … A.J. Brown, the Eagles’ dominant receiver, must have still been suffering the lingering effects of an August hamstring injury because Jalen Hurts threw exactly one pass his direction the entire night and it came after the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter. Take all those things into account — the loss of Saquon Barkley’s lead blocker in two-back sets, no Carter, effectively no Brown — and toss in the fact the game was in CeeDee Lamb’s hands all night because of the new Eagles’ one large deficiency (starting Adoree’ Jackson at cornerback).
It says the Cowboys should have won this game.
More opportunities for a Dallas upset presented themselves at Lincoln Financial Field than the Cowboys ever could have hoped for. That includes the confidence gained from scoring on their first four possessions to have 20 points at halftime. That includes Tyler Guyton returning at left tackle after a rocky rookie season and Tyler Booker playing inside on his first night as an NFL player (admittedly fortunate not to deal with Carter) and the Cowboys leaving the game with zero sacks. There should have been one but Dak Prescott showed that while he can’t run anything like Jalen Hurts, he can occasionally do a remarkable job extracting himself from the clutches of Jordan Davis to run for 3 yards.
Naturally, the Cowboys will get another crack at the Eagles in November at the start of the most daunting six-game stretch (Eagles, Chiefs, at Lions, Vikings, Chargers, at Commanders) of a challenging schedule. But you like to capitalize when an opportunity comes, no matter how unlikely it seems.
Moving forward, however, the Cowboys come out of a difficult loss with a series of fresh hopes for a brighter future. We have already mentioned the offensive line holding up against a good Eagles’ front, even without Carter. And we know Lamb isn’t going to drop big passes all season. No one in the league has truly better numbers over the last two seasons and, with a healthy Prescott, the 100-yard days will keep coming. The surprise for me is the Cowboys’ running game looking as efficient as it did.
’No moral victories’ for Brian Schottenheimer, Cowboys in Week 1 loss – Tommy Yarrish, DallasCowboys.com
Simply competing hard isn’t enough for Schottenheimer’s Cowboys. They want wins.
PHILADELPHIA – Ever since he started coaching back in 1997 as an assistant under Dick Vermeil, Brian Schottenheimer dreamed of becoming an NFL head coach.
On Thursday night, he fulfilled his dream after 28 years of waiting his turn, leading the Cowboys out onto the field against the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, where Dallas came short losing 24-20.
It wasn’t the night that Schottenheimer or the Cowboys wanted, and they’re not taking any pleasure in just hanging around with some of the best teams in the league.
“I’m proud of how they competed, but I don’t find any moral victories when this team’s built on a culture that’s all about winning,” Schottenheimer said. “You don’t find moral victories in losing.”
During the national anthem, Schottenheimer’s emotions that had been built up nearly three decades all came pouring out.
He speaks to two people while the Star Spangled Banner is sung: God, and his father, legendary NFL head coach Marty Schottenheimer. While his conversation was with his dad in the heavens above, his thoughts were on his players standing beside him.
“I’m surrounded by such great young men in that locker room and coaches – that was my main focus today,” Schottenheimer said. Just being around them, and I wish we would’ve found a way to get a dub.”
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