The Dallas Cowboys are making weekly history in the worst kind of way this season.
The Dallas Cowboys made history on Sunday in the worst kind of way. In case you missed it, they became the first team in NFL history to trail by 20 points or more in five consecutive games at home. Hang the banner! Maybe even hang it in a place that it covers the sun.
Something we have been doing every week this season here is chronicling history made by the team, although unfortunately it has mostly been of the bad sort of variety. The Cowboys are a bad football team making sure that they are remembered for that in ways that no other teams generally are.
Every week we comb through the state of the team following their most recent game and assess it against both franchise and NFL history at large to see what we can learn. The phenomenal tools at Stathead and Pro Football Reference help make this possible, so you can blame them if any of the following things make you sad.
Let’s begin!
Amazingly, we have seen this game before sort of
Cooper Rush started at and played quarterback for the Cowboys on Sunday. That is about the best possible way that what happened can be framed.
It was a rough outing for Rush to say the least, but something specific about it will blow your mind. You see, Rush attempted 23 passes and threw for only 45 yards. That sounded impossible. It turns out that a quarterback has only thrown for 45 yards (or fewer) on at least 23 pass attempts nine times before Rush did across NFL history. What is particularly amazing though is that Cooper was not even the first Cowboys quarterback to do it!
The most recent instance of this “phenomenon” was when Anthony Wright did it with a star on his helmet against the same opponent in the Philadelphia Eagles way back in the early days of 2001.
That’s where we are, people.
Ezekiel Elliott is among the most inefficient runners in some time
Jerry Jones said on Tuesday during his appearance on 105.3 The Fan that the Cowboys are not living in the past with Ezekiel Elliott. Wherever they are indeed living, it is a tough time.
To date Elliott has played in eight games for the Cowboys this season (remember his disciplinary violation happened so he missed the Atlanta game) and has 54 carries for 171 yards in them.
What you are looking at above is the last 10 running backs to have at least 54 carries for no more than 171 yards in the first eight games of a season played. As you can see the list is uninspiring. Something particularly devastating about this list is the last person to “accomplish” this before Zeke was someone who fans want to see used instead of him in Dalvin Cook. You really cannot write this kind of stuff.
While Cook did not “accomplish” this under Mike McCarthy’s supervision, it should be noted that James Starks did with the Green Bay Packers in 2016 so he has now overseen such an instance twice in his career.
Ezekiel Elliott’s poor start is a rare thing in franchise history
Focusing on Dallas Cowboys history just a bit, you are now looking at running backs who have, in their first eight games of a Cowboys season, had at least 50 carries for no more than 171 yards. The list is not a long one.
Saying these things is only done so because they are factual and not from a place of malice, but Ezekiel Elliott is quite literally one of the most ineffective and inefficient runners (as far as who he is in this current moment) that the team has ever seen. Giving him any number of carries over literally anybody else is suspect right now.
Not scoring a touchdown after the recovered fumble was almost impossible to do
You will recall that Elliott fumbled in the redzone on Sunday and that shortly after the Cowboys, miraculously, caused a fumble of their own to basically undo it. Consider that they lost the ball on the Philadelphia six-yard line and recovered their fumble there as well.
The above list is one of all NFL drives since 2001 that began off of a turnover that wound up scoring (so no fumbles, interceptions or turnovers on downs) that began inside of the opponent’s six-yard line. If that sounds confusing just think of it as exactly the circumstances that the Cowboys were in at that moment.
84.7% (call it 85% if you want to round up) scored in touchdowns. That isn’t quite 99% or anything, but consider that from the moment that Dallas took over at that moment in time that almost a quarter century’s worth of history gave them an 85% chance of scoring a touchdown.
Dallas ran the ball to Zeke (shocker), saw CeeDee Lamb lose the ball in the sun (also a shocker) and then Rico Dowdle got stuffed before Brandon Aubrey did his thing. It is extraordinarily difficult to not walk away with a touchdown there and yet the Cowboys made sure that they didn’t.
Home blowouts of this variety are not common for anyone except the Cowboys
The Cowboys have lost every game that they have played at home so far this season. There have been four in total, but they have only lost three of them by 25 more points. At least it isn’t all four!
Since 2021 there have now only been three instances of a team losing at least three games at home by 25+. The Atlanta Falcons did it twice in 2021 and the Washington Commanders had it happen to them three times last season.
The Dallas Cowboys have done it three times already and still have five home games remaining.
No Dallas Cowboys team with three wins through the first nine has made the playoffs
The point in bringing this up is not to string anybody along that the playoffs are still “mathematically possible” but just to provide perspective for where the team is at relative to franchise history.
The Cowboys have now won three or fewer games through their first nine a total of 13 times in franchise history. None of the previous 12 teams made the playoffs and only a single one finished with seven wins (none finished with more than that).
History is not necessarily a predictor of the future obviously, but hopefully this helps crystalize the type of next two months that we can expect from this team (gulp).
