Tim Heitman-Imagn Images Jerry Jones noted DaRon Bland is expected to make his season debut on Sunday. Among the litany of issues the Dallas Cowboys have been dealing with these days, many of them self-inflicted, they have been bitten rather hard by the injury bug. This has been a recurring theme across this season as a number of different players have been affected. One injury that the team has been dealing with for a while now has been that to cornerback DaRon Bland. In late August it was revealed that he had a stress fracture in his foot. Dallas opened the 21-day practice window for Bland ahead of the Detroit Lions game which was a week before the team’s bye. The looming bye made it a curious decision and the time since has as well given that it has been six weeks. Whatever the case, according to Jerry Jones we can expect to see Bland make his debut on Sunday against the Washington Commanders. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones expects CB DaRon Bland to make his season debut against the Washington. “Yes, I do, unless something pops its head up in the next couple of days.” @1053thefan — Clarence Hill Jr (@clarencehilljr) November 21, 2024 It was this time last year when Bland was making himself a household name by returning interceptions for touchdowns left and right. Bland would famously go on to set the NFL record for most interceptions returned in a season during the team’s Thanksgiving Day game, incidentally a contest also against the Washington Commanders who the team will see on Sunday. Obviously this season is a lost one for the Cowboys, but Bland is eligible for a contract extension for the first time in the offseason. It stands to reason that he would want to capitalize on his performances last year, you know how that thing goes.

Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images Historically speaking, we are watching one of the worst Dallas Cowboys teams to ever exist. It is easy to speak in hyperbole nowadays. Everything is the best or worst ever. So and so is the Greatest Of All Time. Anywhere and everywhere you look, like the sentence that you are currently reading, people exaggerate a bit. It is the way things go. Unlike the one you just read, this next sentence is not hyperbole: We are watching one of the worst Dallas Cowboys teams to ever exist. This is factually and objectively true, unfortunately. Amazingly, there are still seven games left of this monstrosity, but through their first ten games played, the current Cowboys are touching the most rarified of toxic and unbreathable air. How do we know this, exactly? Thanks to the tools that Stathead and Pro Football Reference offer we can sort things by way of team and NFL history at large and I am sorry to report that we are seeing some things that nobody should ever have to. 55 passing attempts in a game is rare and not ever a good thing Quarterback Cooper Rush had 55 passing attempts on Monday night against the Houston Texans. It is conventional wisdom that throwing the ball this many times in a single game is a bad idea, and the results are overwhelming proof of that. This was only the eighth time in franchise history that a Cowboys quarterback had at least 55 passing attempts. The team is 0-8 in every single one of those games. Congratulations to Rush though on joining a list that now features Troy Aikman, Tony Romo, Dak Prescott and himself. We saw the 50th instance of a Dallas Cowboys QB throwing for 350+ Among the results of Rush’s many attempts were enough completions to go for north of 350 passing yards (354 to be precise). This marked the 50th time that a Cowboys quarterback has thrown for at least 350 yards in a single game. Obviously Rush has only done it once which is true for the majority of players on this list. Bet you didn’t think you’d read something about Gary Hogeboom today! Only one rushing touchdown at home to this point is rare for the Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys have played five games at home so far this season. You know this. What you may not have totally remembered or realized is that the Cowboys have only a single rushing touchdown through these games specifically. It was a Dak Prescott rushing touchdown so for the record they do not have any from an actual running back. Nevertheless, this is only the third time in franchise history that the team has had one or fewer (so none) rushing touchdowns through their first five home games. We are in 2001 and 1988 territory! This is now tied for the third-longest losing streak at home in team history If we expand our search a bit then we obviously know that the Cowboys have lost six consecutive games at home with the playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers that completely broke, dismantled and disintegrated this franchise into an irrecoverable mess. I digress. Monday night’s loss to the Houston Texans at home put the Cowboys in a tie with the 1960 version of themselves (another team you do not want to be compared to) for the third-longest losing streak at home ever. That season, and the one at the top of this list, were ones that did not take place in the Cowboys’ current home building which means Dallas is currently in the middle of the second-longest losing streak in the history of AT&T Stadium specifically. It is not common to have three consecutive home games with ten or fewer points scored in each A moment ago we expanded outwardly, but if we isolate things a bit by focusing the microscope then we can see a particularly gross infection plaguing this team. Consider the last three home games specifically: Detroit Lions, Philadelphia Eagles and Houston Texans. Dallas scored nine, six and ten points in those games, respectively. They are the first team across the entire NFL to have three straight home games with ten or fewer points scored in five years. Think about the teams on this list. This is poor company. This is the only team in franchise history to have three straight home games with ten or fewer points scored In closing, I was curious once I got down the rabbit hole of this three-game stretch with ten or fewer points scored in it. Assuming you had the same thought that I did, I will offer the answer sobering answer you were afraid of. This is the first team in Dallas Cowboys franchise history to have three straight games at home with ten or fewer points scored in each of them. Any time any franchise record or mark is set is notable when you are talking about a team that has been around forever like this. What’s more is we are talking about a specific phenomenon occurring and over a multiple-game stretch. This isn’t a one-off or single event. These are the dark times, my friends.

Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images The latest news surrounding the Dallas Cowboys. Brandin Cooks’ knee ‘feels great’, identifies key item missing from Cowboys – Patrik Walker, DallasCowboys.com Dallas WR2 has been eager to return to the field. Brandin Cooks has been patiently waiting to return to the field for the Dallas Cowboys. The veteran wide receiver has been on injured reserve for the majority of the 2024 season, sidelined since Week 4 due to an infection in his knee, unable to do anything on the field to try and help avoid the current 3-7 record. His practice window was opened on Wednesday, however, giving the Cowboys a total of 21 days to determine if he’ll be moved back to the active roster or if he’ll revert to season-ending injured reserve. The latter seems extremely unlikely, seeing as Cooks is champing at the bit to play and, physically, is on track to do it possibly as early as this weekend against the Washington Commanders. “Feels great,” he said of his knee, stiff-arming any notion he’d have to contend with rust. “My mindset is to go out there as if I ain’t lose a step. I’ve been putting in the work with the training staff, strength coaches, and so that’s my mindset going into it. “Let’s go.” It’s been a rough go for the multi-time 1,000-yard receiver and not simply as he recovered from the infection, but also in seeing the tailspin that occurred on the field. “Yeah, I was definitely frustrated but, you know, it’s life and things happen,” he explained. “But it’s more frustrating when you see your team not winning. I think that that’s the thing. When you go out there and win, it’s one thing, but when we lose, and like how we’ve been [doing], it makes things a little harder and makes you when you get back and fast as you can to help as much as you can.” Cooks is looking to bring an aura back to the offense with seven games remaining. “I hope I can bring a spark and not just on the field, but just some of that energy out there on Sundays,” he said. “That’s my mindset — to just get guys playing at a high level, playing fast, playing free, and having a great time out there. I think that’s what I’m not seeing right now. “I think we can go out there and be more joyful in our process, for sure.” Micah Parsons Fires Shot at Ex-Teammate Dalton Schultz After Cowboys’ Loss to Texans – Karl Rasmussen, Sports Illustrated Parsons wasn’t pleased with how his former teammate celebrated the Texans’ victory. The Dallas Cowboys were totally outmatched on Monday night during a humbling 34–10 defeat against the Houston Texans. After the game, some Texans players took the opportunity to declare themselves the top team in the state, including tight end Dalton Schultz—who posted a coffee-related video about Houston’s stature atop the state’s football hierarchy. Schultz’s video doesn’t appear to have sat too well with Micah Parsons, with whom he was teammates on the Cowboys for two seasons from 2021 to 2022. During his weekly podcast episode, Parsons—somewhat hypocritically—called out Schultz for chirping on Twitter despite not having a huge impact in Monday’s win. “I actually saw Dalton Schultz put some little coffee thing on Twitter… I get if like Joe Mixon did that, you know, he had a decent game with 100 yards, 20 carries,” said Parsons. “But like, no impact and on Twitter? Come on.” In the win, Schultz recorded a team-high five receptions for 33 yards. It wasn’t a world-beating performance by any means, but he played his part. And one could argue he had a bigger contribution than Parsons, who recorded just one assisted tackle in the game. Still, Parsons felt it was appropriate to call out Schultz over his video—all while recording the latest episode of his podcast in the midst of a five-game losing streak. Michael Irvin says Deion Sanders would be willing to coach the Cowboys under one very specific condition – John Breech, CBS Sports The Playmaker wants to see his ex-Cowboys teammate at the helm. With the Dallas Cowboys sitting at 3-7 heading into Week 12, it’s starting to look like Mike McCarthy won’t be returning for a sixth season with the team. That means the Cowboys could be in the market for a new coach come January. If that happens, one name that keeps popping up is Deion Sanders. The Pro Football Hall of Famer spent five seasons in Dallas and won a Super Bowl with the Cowboys in 1995. Although Sanders seems to be happy in his current role as head coach at Colorado, the Cowboys could still lure him to Dallas if they’re willing to do one thing, according to Michael Irvin. During a Tuesday appearance on “The Herd,” Irvin was asked whether Sanders would consider taking the Cowboys coaching job if the team were to draft his son, Shedeur Sanders, and he gave a very interesting answer. “I believe 100% [yes], and I can tell you, good sources have told me that,” Irvin said. “Great sources have told me that. That’s all I can say like that without violating anything else.” Basically, if you believe Irvin, then Sanders would be all about taking the Dallas job if the Cowboys are willing to use their first-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft on Shedeur, who is currently a star quarterback at Colorado. Considering the Cowboys already have Dak Prescott, this seems like an unlikely scenario, but crazier things have happened. Also, Irvin has already made it clear that he’s going to spend the next month pleading with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to hire Deion. After a 3-7 start, here are the positives for the 2024 Dallas Cowboys – Shane Taylor, InsideTheStar.com The season is effectively over, but it’s not been completely void of any bright spots. What positives can we take away from such a down season for this football

Photo by John Rivera/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images All advanced metrics suggest that the current Cowboys are, shocker here, very bad. After the Cowboys fell to the Texans on Monday night, losing their fifth straight game, two things have become clear. On one hand, this team is headed in the wrong direction when you look at leading indicators of success. On the other hand, they’re heading in the absolute right direction for a top draft pick. If the season ended today, the Cowboys would be picking ninth per Tankathon. But looking at the advanced statistics suggests that the Cowboys can aspire to much more than that, but only if you’re operating with the mindset of maximizing draft value. Let’s take a look. The Cowboys are a very bad football team. Like, super bad. They’re wildly inefficient on both offense and defense, and even special teams has dropped in the DVOA rankings for two straight weeks now. There are only five teams worse than Dallas in total team DVOA right now, and four of them – the Titans, Raiders, Panthers, and Patriots – are led by rookie head coaches. The one exception is the Browns, who lost to the Cowboys in the season opener. 2024 NFL Team Tiers, Weeks 1-11, courtesy of rbsdm.com The EPA-based team tiers are less flattering, somehow. The Cowboys are now 31st in total EPA/play, ever so slightly ahead of the dismal Panthers. While DVOA measures efficiency adjusted for quality of opponent, EPA looks solely at how efficient teams have actually been, regardless of who they played. In that regard, the Cowboys are the second-worst team in the league through 11 weeks despite seven teams having a worse record. These metrics are certainly not predictive, but if things continue on this trajectory for the rest of the year, the Cowboys are looking at a top three draft pick come April. Offense The offense didn’t take much of a dip in the efficiency metrics from last week, but that’s only because they had a whole different kind of inefficiency this time around. Last week, they hardly moved the ball at all, with Cooper Rush averaging a measly two yards per attempt. This week, Rush had 354 passing yards but also threw a pick, had a fumble returned for a touchdown, and had four turnover worthy plays on the day. The run game was somehow worse, averaging 3.6 yards per carry against a below-average run defense. Cooper Rush has now started two games, in addition to a handful of plays earlier in the year, and he does not measure up well against the rest of the league. His best metric here is QBR, where he ranks 31st and just barely ahead of Deshaun Watson. In every other category, Rush is no better than 34th. That makes sense for a backup quarterback, but it’s still a far cry from what you want to see. Dak Prescott wasn’t playing well at all when he went down, but he was still considerably better than what Rush has put up thus far. The dismal numbers are making it very hard to ignore the terrible product this front office has put on the field on offense. A big part of the offensive struggles has come from the offensive line. The Cowboys have been gradually dropping in adjusted line yards, which measures offensive line success in run blocking, each of the last five weeks. Rico Dowdle has unquestionably been their best running back, but nobody could have success behind this line with the way they’ve been playing. In pass protection, it’s been a mixed bag. Tyler Smith and Cooper Beebe have been legitimately good, and even Tyler Guyton has fared well for a rookie left tackle. But Zack Martin is easily having the worst year of his career, while Terence Steele is second in most pressures allowed and leads the league in sacks allowed. The right side of the line has been abysmal for the Cowboys all year. Defense The defense actually had a solid game, at least for them. They didn’t move up in any of the efficiency rankings, but their actual grades improved somewhat. They also jumped up to fourth in pressure rate, both a sign of how valuable Micah Parsons is and how good Mike Zimmer’s scheme can be; for context, last year’s defense had 16 players record multiple pressures on the year, and so far Zimmer’s defense has 15 players that have done so. Where Zimmer’s defense has been consistently bad, though, is against the run. That remained true this week, as Joe Mixon absolutely went off from start to finish and averaged nearly as many yards after contact per attempt as he did total yards per carry. Josh Butler and Israel Mukuamu both recorded their first start of the year, and it went about as you’d expect. Together, they allowed six receptions on nine targets, and both recorded a pass breakup. Butler struggled more, but considering he wasn’t even on the active roster on Monday morning, it’s hard to judge him too harshly. One player who does deserve some criticism is DeMarvion Overshown. While the second-year linebacker has often flashed against the run, his coverage results have been disastrous. Among linebackers with 25+ targets on the year, Overshown leads in completion rate allowed and ranks eighth in passer rating and third in yards after the catch despite having the second-lowest average depth of target. Opposing quarterbacks have targeted Overshown over and over with great success, and it’s becoming a real issue.

Photo by Perry Knotts/Getty Images It is one thing that the Cowboys are still losing games, but it is another that they have already squandered future draft capital on top of it. The Dallas Cowboys have lost another game. Their 3-7 record puts them in the bottom 10 in the league, and it’s not likely to get much better as the season progresses. When a bow is tied on the 2024 season, the Cowboys should find themselves with a top-10 pick in the 2025 NFL draft. That’s a silver lining to an otherwise terrible season, but as their draft capital improves, it also brings attention to their fourth-round draft pick that they no longer have. Earlier in the month, the Cowboys traded away their fourth-round pick to acquire wide receiver Jonathan Mingo from the Carolina Panthers. The decision was criticized because it felt like a high price for a receiver who has struggled at the NFL level, but that price keeps going higher with every additional loss. This draft pick is on pace to be just outside the top 100 picks. When the Cowboys initially made the trade, we attempted to look at the average value of the picks they gave up and compared them to the players they got in return. The result was that the Cowboys actually came out ahead in those deals. That is good and all, but that only tells half the story. We didn’t analyze what the Cowboys could have gotten from using those picks to draft players. The Cowboys are a good drafting team. Giving up good draft capital for a player comes with risk. Using the same metric as before, the total AV value a team should expect from a draft pick can be represented below (data courtesy of Arrowhead Pride). For a fourth-round pick, a total AV value (with their original team) of around five is what teams should expect on average. If we looked at the last 10 drafts, starting from 2023 (they didn’t have a fourth-round pick last year because of the Trey Lance trade), this is what their haul looks like: YEAR PLAYER APPROXIMATE VALUE HIT/MISS 2024 No Pick N/A N/A 2023 Viliami Fehoko 0 miss 2022 Jake Ferguson 11 hit 2021 Jabril Cox 2 miss 2021 Josh Ball 1 miss 2020 Reggie Robinson II 0 miss 2020 Tyler Biadasz 25 hit 2019 Tony Pollard 37 hit 2018 Dorance Armstrong 17 hit 2018 Dalton Schultz 19 hit 2017 Ryan Switzer 0 miss 2016 Charles Tapper 0 miss 2016 Dak Prescott 107 hit 2015 Damien Wilson 13 hit 2014 Anthony Hitchens 24 hit Looking at this list, the Cowboys have hit on eight players during that span: Dak Prescott, Tony Pollard, Tyler Biadasz, Anthony Hitchens, Dalton Schultz, Dorance Armstrong, Jake Ferguson, and Damien Wilson. All of those players easily exceed the projected AV value of five. Eight hits from 14 selections is a hit rate of 57%. The data analysis from Arrowhead Pride also explained that a successful draft pick is defined by an AV score of 12 or more. And since all rounds aren’t created equal, there are higher expectations for picks selected earlier than others. The success rate by round is shown below for a 28-year data sampling. This data shows that the Cowboys’ fourth-round success rate is better than twice the league average. Note: Jake Ferguson only had an AV score of 11 entering this season, but we’re classifying him as a successful pick since he’s eclipsed 12 when adding the current season. The Cowboys’ success rate of 57% matches what teams get from second-round picks. Again, this further validates the idea that this team drafts well. They don’t hit on everything, but when you analyze the data, they come out looking very good. This makes the Mingo trade even more problematic. On Monday night, Mingo had zero catches on four targets. He’s been with the team for two weeks and is still acclimating himself to the Cowboys’ offense. While his true value remains to be determined, the chances of him exceeding what the Cowboys would get just by making the pick isn’t encouraging. Sure, the pick could be a Fehoko or a Tapper, but there are also a lot of Pro Bowlers on that list, so the data continues to suggest this was a bad move by the Cowboys. And with that draft pick improving with each loss, it’s even more likely they would’ve selected a good player.

Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images Which Commanders players do you think can have the most success against the Cowboys? The Dallas Cowboys were predicted to be one of the best teams in the NFC East division this year and the Washington Commanders one of the worst. Nothing could be further from the truth heading into this Week 12 matchup between bitter division rivals. Both teams seem to be heading in opposite directions of one another right now. Under the guidance of their new head coach Dan Quinn and their first-year rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, the Commanders have been one of the more entertaining and surprising teams to emerge as a legitimate playoff contender this year. With the multitude of injuries Dallas is dealing with and the overall poor play so far this season, this is a game that sways heavily in the favor of the Commanders. There are a few matchups worth keeping an eye on for entertainment purposes which we listed below, but all in all this will more than likely be yet another embarrassing loss for the Cowboys. Mike McCarthy vs. Dan Quinn If you’re looking for a matchup that heavily favors the Washington Commanders, look no further than Mike McCarthy versus Dan Quinn. Not only is Quinn highly familiar with the Cowboys offensive scheme and McCarthy’s play-calling as Dallas’ former DC, but he’s also very familiar with the personnel as well. Quinn should be able to take advantage of all of this knowledge he’s stored up over the years in Dallas and incorporate it into the game plan for this Week 12 matchup, the first of two between these bitter division rivals. Cowboys’ OL vs. Commanders’ DL Sadly, this is another matchup that is looking as if it will heavily favor the Washington Commanders. Tyler Guyton, Tyler Smith, and Zack Martin all exited last weeks game early due to injuries and didn’t return, putting their availability in question for this Week 12 matchup. That could mean the Dallas Cowboys OL will be patchworked with backups against a pretty talented Washington DL headlined by Daron Payne and Jer’Zhan Newton. That probably means it will be really tough for the Dallas to get anything going offensively. DE Micah Parsons vs. LT Brandon Coleman If there’s a matchup that might favor the Cowboys, it’s Micah Parsons versus Washington’s LT Brandon Coleman. Coleman was the Commanders third-round pick (67th overall) this year and has played surprisingly well so far in his rookie season. He’s only been penalized once this year and has only given up a total of four sacks this season. He could have his hands full with Parsons though. No. 11 didn’t have a QB sack last week, but he had two against the Eagles in Week 10. Another multi-sack game is definitely attainable for Parsons.