The latest headline surrounding the Dallas Cowboys.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones explains himself to The Athletic after fired up radio comments Tuesday – Jon Machota and Diana Russini, The Athletic
Jerry Jones spoke for the first time after his contentious appearance on 105.3 The Fan.
While attending NFL meetings Tuesday afternoon in Atlanta, Jones explained in an exclusive interview with The Athletic’s Dianna Russini why he reacted the way he did.
“I don’t know that I would go as far as (calling) the volume connotation as yelling,” Jones said. “OK? But the facts are that if I’m going to be grilled by the tribunal, I don’t need it to be by the guys I’m paying. I can take it from fans and take it from other people. I take a lot of pride in how fair and how much I try to work with the media, we’re brothers and sisters. But I was a little frustrated there today.
“We got in there as of accounting for decisions made in the offseason. OK? They might as well gone back to decisions made in 2010. My point is, and that’s from my perspective, there’s no question, I’m sure, that they would have liked to have grilled me like the fans are thinking, what are you going to do about that? I get it. I get all of that. And really will go along with it.
Jones went on to further explain how his frustration stemmed from the individuals asking the questions, not necessarily the topic itself.
“The wrong ones were doing the questioning. Now, if those had been real fans sitting there or if there had been people that knew what they were talking about, football people, I might have had a different answer.”
Jones also made it clear that he has no plans of making significant changes to his coaching staff. The majority of Dallas’ coaches are on either one-year deals or are in the final year of their contracts. Coach Mike McCarthy is in the final year of his five-year deal.
The Big Thing: The Cowboys can’t seem to get up from the mat – Ben Solak, ESPN
Solak offers a micro and a macro view of what’s wrong with the Cowboys. Hard to say which is more concerning.
The micro view is crystal clear and highly troubling. The Cowboys can’t stop any offense with a pulse. The departure of longtime defensive coordinator Dan Quinn this offseason took the bite out of the defense. Quinn’s commitment to a deep stable of dedicated pass rushers kept the Cowboys among the league’s leaders in pressure rate every season. When he left to become the Commanders’ coach, depth rushers Dante Fowler Jr. and Dorance Armstrong followed him to Washington. The injury bug bit at the wrong time, taking Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence and rookie Marshawn Kneeland out for this game against the Lions, though the Dallas pass rush was already dropping to fine-but-unspectacular levels before the absences accumulated.
As new defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer has tried to transition this depth chart to his style, gaps have become apparent. Diggs looks nothing like the ball-hawking star he was under Quinn. Undersized linebackers DeMarvion Overshown and Damone Clark, drafted for Quinn’s defensive approach, lack the staunchness against the run to survive in Zimmer’s defense. Defensive tackles Mazi Smith and Osa Odighizuwa are struggling in the trenches. There is no defender playing better ball now than he did under Quinn, nor is there a surprising contributor pulling beyond their usual weight. The Cowboys are giving up 0.17 EPA per run on defense. That’s not only the worst number among defenses in 2024, it would also be the worst single-season figure since 2006.
[…]
And that brings us to our macro view, which is still one of attrition — but attrition of a different sort. There is a great and unique pain in that concoction of regular-season success and postseason failure that the Cowboys have endured in recent years. The consistent winning performances in the regular season create high expectations, from which the postseason falls are all the more crushing. Over and over and over again, the McCarthy-era Cowboys climbed the mountain to do only one thing: fall from it.
Now, this team finally looks like it can’t get up from the mat. It doesn’t have the energy to climb the mountain again, not when so many players and coaches have left. And the players and coaches who remain are a year older, a year more banged up and a year more jaded. Whatever sharp edge Dallas had as a contending team, full of belief, has been dulled.
Mike Zimmer admits to hitting ‘panic’ button too early vs. Lions – Tommy Yarrish, DallasCowboys.com
Defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer could have played things differently on Sunday.
“I probably panicked on some calls early because [Detroit] hit us with some things early,” Zimmer said. “And so I changed up a little bit, probably a little too soon.”
The way the game went, it felt like no matter what Zimmer and the Cowboys defense tried to do wouldn’t have worked. Detroit had a field day on offense, scoring 47 points and 492 yards of total offense. When things have gone downhill for Dallas’ defense, it feels like an avalanche and that was the case again on Sunday.
“When we’ve been bad, it’s like it just steamrolls,” Zimmer said. “It goes bad, bad, bad, bad… a lot of it comes down to eye discipline, guys running to get somewhere, trying to get somewhere fast when they don’t need to be.”
Among the many things the defense will have to work on during the bye week and the rest of the season is tackling, as the Cowboys are one of the worst teams in the NFL in missed tackles this season. In Zimmer’s eyes, missed tackles aren’t a product of just one player.
“One guy can’t make the tackle all the time, we got to get more hats on the ball.” Zimmer said.
The natural follow up question there is: How do you get more hats on the ball?
Cowboys coaches using bye week to figure out how to fix ‘frustrating’ defense – Jon Machota, The Athletic
Well, good luck with that!
The coaches were using this week to go over every defensive snap from the first six games. They’re trying to figure out what has worked, what can be fixed and what needs to be changed. Multiple coaches mentioned defenders needing to do a better job of tackling and shedding blocks. Better eye discipline and players trying to make plays while getting away from their assignments were also mentioned.
“Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals,” said assistant head coach and defensive backs coach Al Harris. “Everybody has scheme. We just got to get back to the basics. I think the bye is coming at a great time. We can go over things as a staff, make a couple of adjustments here or there. We just got to get back to the basics.”
Zimmer doesn’t see work ethic being an issue. He says the group works hard in practice. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense how they’ve played in their three home losses compared to in their three road wins.
“It’s just the inconsistency,” Zimmer said. “It’s definitely frustrating. I’m used to having really good teams. We’re going to get there because I believe in these guys and the way that they’re working. But it’s like I got 20 holes in a dike, and I put my finger in this one and then I got to put my finger in that one. It’s not every time. One guy makes a mistake here and it gets ugly. One guy makes a mistake here and it gets ugly. It compounds over the time. Have to get more disciplined.”
Browns trade Amari Cooper to Buffalo, receive more than originally gave to Cowboys – RJ Ochoa, Blogging the Boys
The Cowboys trading Amari Cooper to the Browns for a fifth-round pick remains one of the most puzzling moves in franchise history.
On Tuesday afternoon Buffalo traded for Cooper and because this is the only way that this could possibly go at this point, the Browns got more for Cooper than they gave to the Cowboys when they originally traded for him in 2022.
Full trade:#Browns get 2025 third- and 2026 seventh-round picks #Bills get Amari Cooper and a 2025 sixth-round pick https://t.co/FeCyyha3LM
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) October 15, 2024
The Cowboys very infamously received a fifth-round pick (and a sixth-round pick swap) from Cleveland in exchange for Cooper. Simply put, it is one of the worst trades that the team has made in franchise history.
That the Browns were able to get more for him after he is an older and less accomplished (as far as this current moment) player speaks a lot to just how disastrous the trade really was.
It is worth mentioning that Cleveland restructured Cooper’s contract months ago, likely to potentially make this possible, which certainly helps. But as we always say, those are mechanisms the Dallas Cowboys themselves could look to employ and choose not to.
Tuesday has been quite the day for Jerry Jones, to say the least.
Cowboys stuck in a house of horrors with latest home blowout loss to Lions – Jarrett Bell, USA Today
Things are getting scary for the Cowboys entering their bye week.
That flow – or hex, trend, nightmare, embarrassment – continued for the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday with another rout at Jerry World.
Never mind that it was Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ 82nd birthday. The Detroit Lions blew out the candles before halftime and for a gag gift handed Jones a 47-9 drubbing that was the worst home loss in his 35-year ownership tenure.
Ouch.
Jones’ reactions:
“Very concerning.”
“Very humbling.”
“I think it was just the feeling of a team having fun at our expense, Detroit having fun at our expense.”
Even with a flea-flicker that ended with Jared Goff’s 52-yard touchdown pass to Sam LaPorta, it was anything but a complete laugher for the Lions. Detroit’s star defensive end, Aidan Hutchinson, was carted off in the third quarter with his left leg immobilized by an air cast.
Yet, before and after Hutchinson suffered his gruesome injury, the pattern was in full effect as the Lions became the latest visitor to pummel Dallas at AT&T Stadium. Dating back to the NFC playoffs last season, that’s four consecutive games the Cowboys have dropped on their own turf – with the home team allowing a combined 167 points in the defeats.
