Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images We have some thoughts on Sunday’s Dallas Cowboys game after a day to think about it all. We have all experienced devastating Dallas Cowboys losses. Pick your favorite. Maybe the game that came to mind for you right away was when Dez caught it. Perhaps it was the Tony Romo bobble. You may be thinking about the 1994 NFC Championship Game. Odds are high that it was a playoff loss and we all are well aware that there have been many of those to choose from over the last 30 years (almost). When you think about regular season losses they obviously do not hit the same, but the finales from 2011-2013 are up there. Obviously 44-6 holds a horribly special place in history. Even then though, those games were effective playoff games with the losses that came from them cementing a season officially ending. It is extremely difficult to find one of the most disappointing losses in Cowboys franchise history that incited so much devastation to have happened in the month of October. There is simply too much football left to be played for a punch to land so squarely before Halloween even comes. But it kind of feels like we are here now. Sure, the Cowboys are still well alive in a technical and literal sense with regards to this season and the playoff chase. Maybe someday we will laugh about how we all overreacted on October 14th, 2024. We can only hope (in more than one way). Sunday’s loss to the Detroit Lions felt like a different kind of thing to process for the Cowboys, but we will do our best anyway. This is our Day After Thoughts discussion where we let a night’s rest and many cups of coffee power how we feel about the action that we just saw. We will get into three thoughts specifically. It gets old to blame the front office, but this falls squarely and mostly on them The Dallas Cowboys have a lot of problems right now. Pick one. Any of them. The list is long. But it can be true that players are not living up to expectation, that coaches are failing to raise the overall standard, and that all of it was built on a shaky foundation by the “work” that the front office did over the course of the offseason. Yes. It can all be true. The front office very infamously and very notoriously did nothing substantial to help the team over the offseason by way of roster moves. What’s more is that they delayed paying their superstars, players who play very expensive positions, to quite literally the eleventh hour and as a result paid significantly more (in all likelihood based on NFL trends) than if they had been proactive on these fronts. To make matters worse they seemingly gaslit fans at every turn about the potential of things and created an environment that is incredibly untenable. You can have your issues with Mike McCarthy, we all do, but sending him into a contract year was asking for drama to circle the organization around every loss. It wasn’t a stable decision. The sins of the offseason cannot be undone in one fell swoop, especially in the fall months. At this point the bed has been made. It remains very frustrating. There is no denying that this team needs something to change if they want to seriously contend With all of that being said, a serious change could go a long way. Dak Prescott noted after the game how similar to 2018 this start has felt for the team. That group fell to 3-4 before their bye week and odds are this one will get there when they emerge from theirs given that the next game is on the road against the big, bad San Francisco 49ers. It was at that moment six years ago when Dallas sent a future first-round pick to the then-Oakland Raiders in exchange for Amari Cooper. Cooper jolted the offense and the Philadelphia Eagles collapsed and everything lined up for the Cowboys to not only win the NFC East but a playoff game for the first time in the Dak Prescott era as well. Cooper saved that season to put things mildly, and obviously we have seen how all of that turned out. But the time is certainly now for an infusion of help somewhere, wide receiver is certainly an option, before it is too late. Trying to go at this whole thing with the roster as it lies would be hard to justify, but perhaps that is what the Cowboys are going to do. With the team at the bye week it would stand to reason that now would be the time to reflect and make a move. We will see if they have any intention of doing so. It does not feel like an exaggeration to say that hope is at a real low relative to recent history We are finishing how we started and noting that the emotions, vibes, whatever you want to call them, are rather bad for the Cowboys right now. The Detroit Lions are the talk of the town and sitting at the center of the NFL these days. They are the latest team to have paraded through AT&T Stadium and celebrated just about from start to finish at the home team’s expense. The Cowboys often get compared to teams like the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Lakers, Duke, Alabama, all because of the massive fan bases that those teams have. Where the Cowboys are different is that each of those teams has climbed their respective mountain sometime within the last 15ish years. Those fans watch people root against their team all of the time, but they have also touched the other end of the spectrum. If you are a Cowboys fan of around 40 years or younger, you have only gotten the negative side of this whole deal. And things like

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Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images Our stock report following Sunday’s Dallas Cowboys loss is out and it is very, very bad. We have said things like this before. My goal is not to be a prisoner of the moment. But for the life of me, it is hard to recall a time where being a Dallas Cowboys fan felt like this (gestures wildly at everything). The situation has reached critical mass, DEFCON 1, whatever you want to call it. Sirens are going off and we are so numb to it that we may as well be hitting the snooze button on our alarms. Sunday’s beatdown at the hands of the Detroit Lions was literally the worst loss that the Cowboys have experienced both at AT&T Stadium and in the Jerry Jones ownership era. It was so bad and humiliating that the official X/Twitter account for the building blurred the score out when sharing the attendance figure for the game. To make matters worse, it was revealed on Monday morning that this is the second game/beatdown in a row where they have done that. Here is our stock report. It is shorter than usual because we have focused on the primary culprits of blame and we are going in descending order of most blame to least (to be clear the least amount is still a lot). Let’s go, or whatever. Stock Down: Jerry Jones There is nothing to say here that we have not all shared before. But it obviously starts with the owner, president, general manager – add whatever other title that you want. If you agree with the intro that this is the most down bad (for lack of a more proper term) that we have been as Cowboys fans in some time, Jerry Jones is the person with the most fingerprints across the product. I mean… should we be surprised that the team that built a stadium with a blatant design flaw, the team that wouldn’t let Overshown wear #0 cause it’s Rowdy’s number, the team that brought Zeke back as RB1, the team that traded a 4th round pick for a 3rd string QB they don’t use,… pic.twitter.com/KUR63rbLkD — Ben Rogers (@BenRogers) October 14, 2024 The sun was an issue once again on Sunday afternoon as Ben Rogers (and many others noted). To be clear this is a very stupid and silly thing to complain about. But it persists as an impediment to the home team having success and is, as has been documented many times, an avoidable problem. Yet here we are. On Sunday night we got word from Jones that Mike McCarthy will not be fired anytime soon. This is a talking point in Week 6! McCarthy is certainly at fault in many ways, more on him in a bit, but that these questions are circling now is directly the result of the design that Jerry had for this operation. By not firing or extending McCarthy in the offseason he set up a situation born and bred for toxicity. Those were tough options, but as the person in charge he had to be the one to figure out a way to navigate through it. He didn’t. He stirred the pot. Dragged out contracts. Gaslit the fans. And now we all have to sit, watch and try to tolerate this mess on a weekly basis. So many people are wondering how we got here when Jerry dragged us. Stock Down: Dak Prescott There are a lot of issues going on at the moment, but as QB1 you have to find a way. This type of logic and expectation may be unfair and ridiculous, but that is what comes with the territory. Dak did the Cowboys no favors last week in Pittsburgh but capitalized on a final opportunity to win the game. That was objectively a nice turnaround. Sunday offered only bad. We can note certain issues that he is dealing with and recognize them as real (the lack of playmakers, etc), but Prescott has to play better as well. His two interceptions were both horrible throws where he was pressing, something that has been common in the home blowouts this year. Following the loss to the Baltimore Ravens, Prescott challenged fans to “jump off” if they were seriously doubting the team. Recall that he also noted during training camp that fans needed to get over the playoff loss and that they as players likely took it harder because they play for the team. I’m a Dak fan and have defended him a lot, but those things and moments all sound great in the first act of the movie before the team in question goes in a miracle run. Without that finishing element it all just sounds empty and hollow and frustrating. Stock Down: Mike McCarthy Like with his quarterback, Mike McCarthy has also been asked to swim upstream or else. He is in a tough spot. But he is not helping himself. This is a team that seemed to check out and did so in the most disorganized way possible. McCarthy is failing as both a head coach and a play-caller at the moment. It is difficult to find something that he is doing well. Beyond the fact that McCarthy’s team hasn’t really showed up for the season, he seems to not have as well. Consider that he kicked a field goal while down 34-6 at one point. Seriously. This happened! People will say that it was 4th and 12… but the score was 34-6! What’s more is even if you somehow want to believe that order can be restored here, the Cowboys were clearly losing this game very early on (relatively speaking). Practically speaking you could have just accepted that, acknowledged that you are 3-3 and lived to fight another day. McCarthy chose not to do this. He insisted on playing for pride (lol) or whatever you want to call it and kept starters in as the humiliation continued on. In the third quarter

Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images There are so many issues with the Cowboys right now. What else is there to say? Not enough adjectives can accurately describe the abysmal performance of the Dallas Cowboys against the Detroit Lions. Sure, they are still a .500 team heading into the bye, but they played like a winless bunch with no solutions to their problems in sight. As the Lions dominated the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium for their third loss at home this season, the “home” crowd serenaded the Cowboys with boos on the field. Before long, the Lions crowd took over the stadium, and chants for Jared Goff and Detroit took over the building. As a Cowboys fan, the range of emotions mirrored the five stages of grief throughout the game. Denial: “There’s no way this team is this inept offensively.” Anger: “ANOTHER INTERCEPTION?” Bargaining: “If they can get healthy on defense, maybe they can get more stops.” Depression: “So long as Jerry is making money, nothing is going to change.” Acceptance: “We’ll see what happens against the Niners.” It’ll be a long two weeks before the team gets another chance to redeem itself and put this paltry performance behind them. Yet, after this game, there has to be some critical examination of why this team has underperformed not only at home, but also against good teams. Over the bye, there will be plenty of time to examine what needs to change, but for now, let’s examine how the coaching impacted this embarrassing loss and what went wrong for the Cowboys during their 47-9 loss. On a more minor note, it may be insignificant to some, but it’s unfathomable why a head coach still chooses not to defer after winning the coin toss to begin the game. This means that no matter how bad the game is going, your team can get the ball and start the second half with a glimmer of hope, especially considering that onside kicks aren’t allowed until the fourth quarter and if a team is trailing. The Cowboys again opted to take the ball to start the game, and all they could muster was a field goal after a good drive. Detroit saw Dallas stagnate and capitalized on points with a touchdown on their opening drive. That has developed into a pattern in the last few weeks. It doesn’t matter what bravado Mike McCarthy is trying to instill in the team, it’s a nonsensical decision to start with, but it is exacerbated by an offense that cannot finish drives in the red zone. McCarthy should know his team better than this, but that’s only minor. What else stands out about the coaching from Sunday’s game? Per Mina Kimes, Dak Prescott had the highest tight-window rate in 2022. Fast forward to this season, and it’s been a theme all season that the Cowboys’ offense is littered with tight-window throws that force Prescott to place the ball in risky situations. Some of that can be attributed to the need for more talent in wide receivers. Still, the coaches can do more to alleviate that for Prescott. Take Detroit for a direct model in juxtaposition. Watching how the Lions’ offense operates with creativity, pre-snap motion, and isolating receivers in mismatches, only magnifies the Cowboys need for easier situations to move the ball. At one point, Amon-Ra St. Brown had to be covered by linebacker DeMarvion Overshown after Detroit cleared out their receivers, which afforded St. Brown a clear path across the field. Dallas must incorporate more misdirection or even pick plays to get the players open. Since they don’t do this anywhere as much as they should, the Cowboys are forced to play methodically and nearly perfectly on every down to avoid a third and long. Meanwhile, Detroit unveiled the playbook that seemed almost a personal vendetta for the Cowboys’ controversial win against them last season. The Lions featured their offensive linemen in two of their three trick plays despite having a substantial lead on the Cowboys. In short, the Lions were having more fun than the Cowboys, and it showed thanks to their play-caller/play-designer alleviating the burden off their respective star quarterback and receiver versus Dallas thrusting everything at Prescott and CeeDee Lamb and expecting them to fly the team out of an early tailspin. The same accusations that head coach Mike McCarthy had been under fire for in Green Bay are starting to emerge with Dallas. You know the ones: Stale, unimaginative, bland. You can use the exact synonyms to describe the Cowboy’s broken offense. Now, if you want to underline that the offense has personnel problems, we agree. However, what cannot be understood is utilizing Ezekiel Elliott as much as he was after Rico Dowdle’s game last week against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Elliott did admit to reporters his frustration with his lack of participation in the offense. Yet, his getting a prominent role on the offense’s second series of the game didn’t help. Elliott carried the ball four times for six yards (1.5 yards per attempt) on that drive. His last carry on that drive went for one yard and put Dallas in second and long, where they threw a red zone interception two plays later. The offense doesn’t have many playmakers, but catering meaningful carries to a player, a shell of his former self, falls on both the coaches and the player. For the season, Elliott has 30 carries for only 98 yards. The offense must find a way to put the ball in the hands of the best players in more diverse ways and keep their better players on the field in the first place.

Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images It was all bad and ugly for the Cowboys in the Week 6 matchup with the Lions. After watching the Dallas Cowboys lose 47-9 to the Detroit Lions it’s somewhat surprising they are 3-3 heading into their bye week. Although things look pretty depressing right now, the Cowboys still have a lot of football to play and plenty of time to turn things around. There is still a little hope this team can actually do that. Although the Cowboys were completely embarrassed by the Lions Sunday afternoon, we can still find a silver lining in all those clouds. We take a look at one good, one bad, and one ugly aspect from what is among the Cowboys worst losses in franchise history. THE GOOD – The Week 7 bye Other than Brandon Aubrey being his consistent self, there wasn’t much good to take away from the Cowboys Week 6 loss to the Lions. In all honesty, the only real positive thing we can take away is the fact they didn’t have any players sustain anymore significant injuries and they are now heading into their bye week. Hopefully they can now rest, recuperate, and reevaluate things so that they can better prepare themselves for the remainder of the 2024 season. There is still a lot of football to play this season. THE BAD – Nonexistent home-field advantage The Dallas Cowboys have had a total of three home games this year and have been completely embarrassed in every single one of them. The Saints, Ravens, and now the Lions all dominated to the Cowboys in every aspect of the game in front of Dallas’ hometown fans. It’s hard to believe this team was close to unstoppable at home not long ago. Just last season they were undefeated at home in the regular-season. Has so much changed? THE UGLY – Everything else Pretty much from the opening kickoff till the final seconds ticked off the clock in the fourth quarter, the Cowboys’ performance Sunday afternoon against the Lions was as ugly as it gets. Offensively they had a total of five turnovers and failed to score a single touchdown. Defensively they allowed a total of 492 yards and let the Lions offense pretty much score at will. Dallas no doubt hit rock bottom this week, but the good thing about that is there is only one way to go from here.

Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images Notable headlines surrounding America’s team. Cowboys loss comes in blowout fashion against Lions in Week 6- Mark Heaney, Inside The Star It was an embarrassment all around. First Half I mentioned the two fun plays at the beginning of the first drive, but like I said, that was just about it for Dallas in the first half. In total, the team was outscored 27-6 in the first half. When you add up the Cowboys’ last four home games dating back to the Packers’ playoff loss, they get outscored 110-35 in the first half. That is abysmal, and its shocking coming from a team that was so dominant in home games the last two seasons. Both of the first two drives in the 1st quarter had promise, but they ended in a field goal and Dallas’ fourth red-zone turnover of the season, which leads the NFL. Red-zone struggles have plagued the Cowboys offense since last year, but this newly found turnover issue is an even bigger problem, and it falls directly on Dak Prescott’s shoulders. He was simply not good enough today, and certainly not in the first half. Dallas started and ended the first half with a pair of field goals, but the drives in between ended in an interception, two punts, and a turnover on downs. Woof. Dak on message to Cowboys after blowout loss, going into bye week: ‘Look in the mirror’- Patrik Walker, DallasCowboys.com It certainly needs to be a long look for Dak. A lot went wrong for the Cowboys, and Prescott is owning his part in the failing. When asked if he could play better going forward, having thrown for only 17 completions in 33 attempts for 178 yards with no touchdowns to two interceptions in the face of the Lions’ pass rush, the All-Pro quarterback didn’t shy away from accountability. Instead, he leaned into it fully. “For sure,” said Prescott. “Yeah, simple as that. I don’t want to say I have to play perfect by any means, but I’ve got to play better, better than I did and close to [perfect]. Especially when you’re playing a team like that. “As talented as they are, they’re hot right now — good on defense, great on offense. Yeah, for sure.” Unfortunately for the Cowboys, as it stands, they cannot say the same about themselves on either side of the ball, the offense unable to score touchdowns while the defense has allowed 167 points in its last four home games, the third-most in NFL history over that span of contests. Jerry Jones says Dallas Cowboys will not be moving on from head coach Mike McCarthy – RJ Ochoa, Blogging The Boys Jerry stands firm in face of questions about Mike McCarthy’s job. The Dallas Cowboys are 3-3 and have reached the bye. In a vacuum that sounds okay. But the how we got here matters and at the moment the Cowboys are pulling into Bye Town after driving through a 47-9 embarrassment of a loss. The loss was so bad that it was actually the worst one, in terms of losing by 38 points, in both the history of AT&T Stadium and the Jerry Jones era of ownership. You would think that Jerry Jones himself, the birthday boy as fate would have it on Sunday, would want to utilize his full and total power to change that. Some may feel like it is in the team’s best interest for him to make a move at head coach. According to Jerry postgame… that will not be happening. Dan Campbell actively trolling Cowboys adds more embarrassment to Week 6 beatdown – Jerry Trotta, The Landry Hat As if it couldn’t get any worse. On the very first offensive play for the Lions, they reported offensive lineman Dan Skipper as an eligible receiver. On Detroit’s final possession of the first half, Campbell had both Skipper and tackle Taylor Decker report as eligible. The play culminated with a David Montgomery touchdown run – his second of the first half. In last season’s matchup, the Lions scored a potential game-tying touchdown with 23 seconds remaining in regulation. Ever the aggressor, Campbell opted to go for two and the win but he added a little spice to the play with Decker caching the pass in the end zone. However, the refs threw a flag claiming that Skipper was the only offensive lineman who reported as eligible. Replay quickly showed, though, that Skipper, Decker and even left tackle Penei Sewell all signaled before the play that they were eligible. In a league that is plagued by grotesque refereeing, that was one of the worst calls in recent NFL history. It was so bad that it was a toss-up if Brad Allen’s would get to ref in the playoffs. As much as we hate to give Campbell credit, this was an excellent troll job. It’s one thing to make a statement with the first play of the game, but Campbell rubbed salt in the Cowboys’ wound by having Skipper and Decker report as eligible while already leading by three scores. 3 Mike McCarthy replacements the Cowboys should already have on speed dial- Lior Lampert, FanSided Dallas’ future HC might have been on the opposing sidelines on Sunday. 1. Ben Johnson Dallas could look to their Week 6 opponent’s sideline to find McCarthy’s heir apparent. Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson was the hottest name on the head-coaching circuit last offseason, ultimately electing to stay in Detroit. Johnson evaluated his opportunities before eventually removing himself from the market. Whether he didn’t like the options at his disposal or wanted to see things through in Motown remains unclear. But if “America’s Team” calls, we anticipate him picking up. After being the mastermind behind Detroit’s top-five scoring unit last year, Johnson and the Lions have enjoyed similar success this season. The Cowboys experienced that first-hand in their latest loss. The league has recently favored offensive-driven coaches, and Johnson is the cream of the crop in

Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images The Cowboys made all sorts of history on Sunday afternoon. The only good thing about Sunday’s Dallas Cowboys loss was that it had literally never happened before. Congratulations to the Cowboys on being the first! What exactly are we talking about? In case you were unaware, Sunday’s 47-9 embarrassment was an NFL Scorigami. DET 47 – 9 DALFinal That’s Scorigami!! It’s the 1087th unique final score in NFL history. — Scorigami (@NFL_Scorigami) October 13, 2024 A Scorigami is when a game features a score that has never been recorded before in NFL history. Obviously some scores are very common and you would think through all of NFL history we would have seen anything and everything possible, but prior to Sunday afternoon there had never been a contest ending 47-9. The blowout was all kinds of poor history for the Cowboys as it was the worst loss ever sustained at AT&T Stadium, and the worst loss ever in the Jerry Jones era of ownership (both from a margin of points standpoint). To say it was “something” would be putting it extremely lightly. Congratulations to the Cowboys for their history. Surely that means a lot to them.