ARLINGTON — The Cowboys hit a new kind of rock bottom Monday night, not just because they lost on ESPN’s big national stage and not just because they lost to a losing Cardinals‘ team, one that has a weird history of upsetting Dallas at the worst of times.
A 27-17 loss to Arizona, which had dropped five in a row, forced the Cowboys to settle into the bye week with a 3-5-1 record. They can no longer pretend they are knocking on any sort of wild card door (Detroit and Chicago at 5-3 share the third wild card at the moment). They can no longer pretend they are an offensive machine to be reckoned with every time they step on the field at AT&T Stadium.
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A team that averaged 41.3 points per home game before Monday night scored just 17, and only 10 came from the high-flying offense. As head coach Brian Schottenheimer said, the blocked punt by Sam Williams that Marshawn Kneeland recovered for a touchdown was the only moment that made Dallas think it had a chance to seize this game.
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This franchise has certainly had worse records, and the Cowboys have endured more one-sided losses this season in Chicago and Denver. But the long-standing problem of having a team that does not match up to its owner-fueled brand was never more obvious than it was Monday.
Before the game, the field featured two different ESPN sets and Jones did not miss the opportunity to use this as a showcase to announce a Stars’ hockey game to be played here next February. Whether yukking it up with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on the set or telling Stephen A. Smith’s radio show the team had already made a trade before Tuesday’s deadline, then having Stephen A. in the owner’s box during the game, the manner in which Jones’ determination to be circus ring leader dwarfs his role as general manager was never more apparent.
Then the team laid another egg for which it has become famous during its long absence from playoff relevance. For the first time this year I thought Schottenheimer contributed to the team’s demise, passing up an easy field goal on fourth-and-goal at the 4-yard line on the opening drive. Sure, he has to try to get touchdowns to offset this horrible defense. We all understand that. But the willingness to give the Cardinals early momentum with a fourth-down stop felt like an unnecessary risk.
Schottenheimer went for it again on a fourth-and-3 at the Arizona 21 to start the final quarter, and again the offense let him down. By that time, the score was 27-10, but even a field goal would have reduced it to a two-score game at a time the defense was finding some rare sack opportunities to slow down Arizona.
”Today’s game got away from us, it did,’’ Schottenheimer said. “I made the decision late in the third quarter that we had to go and speed up the game, and we started throwing the ball all over the yard, and we weren’t able to pass protect. And so I’ll sleep OK with that decision. I thought it gave us the best chance to get back into it.’’
Had this been anything like the Dak Show that produced 40 points a game in the previous home challenges, that would have been an unquestioned call. But the myth of the Cowboys’ home-field invincibility was really a product of playing two very bad teams — the Giants and Washington — along with one excellent offensive performance against Green Bay.
At 3-5-1, that stretch of games against Philadelphia, Kansas City and Detroit has us wondering if this team could be eliminated by the first week of December. That’s the real price of this home loss to the Cards.
“When you put two bad losses back to back, you’ve got to find answers,’’ quarterback Dak Prescott said. “You’ve got to find answers. We have to find those solutions.’’
The idea that anything in the form of a solution is to be found at Tuesday afternoon’s trade deadline was foolish before the game kicked off and completely out of the question after witnessing the result. Against a good-not-great Arizona defense, Dak was sacked five times and the offense turned the ball over three times (the final interception was of no real consequence on fourth-and-28, but the fumbles by Javonte Williams and Jake Ferguson were killers).
The most telling moments for this team came at the opening of the third quarter. Trailing the Cards by 10, Dallas needed one good defensive series to try to climb its way back into the game after a bad first half. Instead, the Cards went 74 yards in three plays to make it a 24-7 game just 2:12 into the third quarter.
“We are where we are, and we put ourselves into a hole,’’ Schottenheimer said. “Starts with me and we’ve got to be better.’’
Dallas hits the bye week knowing that only the Giants, Commanders and New Orleans Saints have worse records in the NFC. Feels like just getting better isn’t going to be half the battle that this team is facing.
Cardinal rule: See photos as Cowboys, Dak Prescott get smashed by Arizona
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