The Dallas Cowboys were unable to win four games in a row as they fell to the Detroit Lions on Thursday night. There is hardly any shame in not reaching that many consecutive victories, but given the hole that the team dug for itself early on in the season, it is a bit of a sobering reality nonetheless.
Part of what is frustrating from Thursday night’s results is the way in which the Cowboys lost. They made it a bit of a game in the second half, but they were out-classed by Detroit for a lot of the game. In some ways the score properly represents what happened as Dallas was chasing the Lions all night, but in other ways it doesn’t reflect the back-and-forth nature of the second half before everything broke.
Whatever the case, the Cowboys have a while to sit and stew on this before hosting the Minnesota Vikings next week. Before we get anywhere close to there we need to sort and assess what happened and we like to do so through the lens of both team and franchise history thanks to Stathead and Pro Football Reference.
Here are this week’s historical notes.
A lot of empty calories
The Cowboys put up 30+ points and 400+ total yards and lost. That is a pretty rare thing.
Consider that the team has reached these marks 143 different times in their history. The screenshot you are looking at here though features only 16 of them, the losses.
The defense allowed a ton of points but not a ton of total yards
This had me curious about the defensive side of things. The Cowboys surrendered 40+ points, but “only” 408 total yards. It was a rough night for the special teams coverage group and the Lions had a lot of shorter fields so they did not have to travel as far for their scores.
There are 49 instances of a Cowboys team allowing 40+ points so less than half of the time it has come with the opposing offense having south of 410 total yards. Interesting.
The Cowboys got Jim Taylor’d
Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs had three rushing touchdowns on the night, but he only had 12 carries so with regards to scoring he was remarkably efficient.
It isn’t super uncommon for a player to have that kind of game, but it is a pretty rare thing to happen against the Cowboys specifically. Jahmyr Gibbs became the second player to have three rushing touchdowns against the Cowboys specifically with 15 or fewer carries. The other one was Jim Taylor in the first year that the Cowboys existed!
It was unfortunate to see CeeDee Lamb leave the game with an apparent injury and we certainly hope he is alright. In terms of his production, this game was among his best from a yardage standpoint.
This was just the 12th time in Lamb’s career that he eclipsed 120 receiving yards in a game. There are some pretty special memories on this list.
Dak Prescott hit 375 once more
Along this conversation point, Dak Prescott threw for a season-high in terms of yardage with 376. It marked the 16th time in his career that he has reached 375 (that’s a cleaner-looking number).
The Cowboys are 7-9 in these games. We could certainly argue about yardage in desperation time and all that jazz, but you get the point.
Brandon Aubrey is a machine
This was not my statistic or anything that I pulled. It was noted during the broadcast of the game, but it was special enough that we need to include it. Brandon Aubrey became the first player in NFL history to hit three field goals of 55+ yards in a single game.
What. How. I mean… what. Unreal.
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