ARLINGTON — By virtue of the Eagles’ win in Washington on Saturday night, the Cowboys found themselves playing the role of lame ducks in their home finale Sunday. It took them 30 minutes but they eventually looked the part of a lost cause in the second half when they went scoreless in a 34-17 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers at AT&T Stadium.
No playoffs and a losing record in 2024. Head coach Mike McCarthy lost his job.
No playoffs and needing two wins to get to 8-8-1 and avoid a losing record in 2025. Defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus is likely to lose his job.
This will follow the pattern set five years ago when, in 2019, Jason Garrett’s last Cowboys team went 8-8 and he was replaced by Mike McCarthy, whose 6-10 first season spelled the end for defensive coordinator Mike Nolan.
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You stick around the Cowboys long enough, you see the same things happen over and over. The fact that this team has missed the playoffs in consecutive years, though, is especially alarming since it came after three straight 12-5 seasons that had the folks at The Star believing they were on a championship track for the first time this century.
Not to be. Not even with Dak Prescott staying healthy and throwing for more than 4,000 yards. With the team eliminated, some expected Dak to sit, but the quarterback said he would never cheat the game, that he knows it’s a privilege to have a job in this league, and so there’s no doubt that he will line up in Washington and New York the last two weeks. In the five previous seasons in which he played all year, the Cowboys never had a losing record and only one 8-8 mark.
Still, this looks like a club spinning its wheels, despite a high level of efficiency on offense. George Pickens was the game’s leading receiver with 130 yards on seven catches and Prescott had a 116.5 passer rating while throwing for 244 yards and two touchdowns. But with Quinnen Williams out with an injury and linebacker DeMarvion Overshown leaving the contest early with a concussion, this looked like the same ol’ defense that has failed to stop people all year long, save for a four-day span when the unit clamped down on the Eagles and Chiefs.
The Cowboys are allowing 30.3 points per game, which would break the club record if it holds. There’s reason to think the number will slide after facing the Commanders and Giants, but it’s an awful defense under any circumstances, and moving Eberflus to the booth and off the sidelines had no discernible impact. It seems they will need to budge him just outside the stadium to initiate real change.
Owner Jerry Jones said coaching evaluations will continue in the final two games, and about the best he could say for Eberflus, other than he came extremely highly recommended, was that there would be no coordinator firings before the end of the regular season.
“I thought in the first half we could have played much better defense,’’ Jones said. “From what we expected, what we thought, absolutely we all underachieved, really, and the fact that we’re not in the playoffs says that for you.
“You can always find things that you’re proud of. I know for our fans, for all of us, we need more success.’’
The fact that there was none to be found Sunday was no surprise. The Chargers came here 10-4, still holding out hope of catching Denver in the AFC West after they personally eliminated Kansas City from the playoffs last week. And the Chargers’ weakness — a porous offensive line that has allowed Justin Herbert to be sacked 49 times the first 14 games — was hardly one that Dallas’ front could exploit. For the first time all year, Herbert went unsacked and mostly untouched while throwing for 300 yards and two touchdowns on just 29 pass attempts.
The Cowboys won‘t face anyone of Herbert’s talent level the next two weeks, and might even get 39-year-old Josh Johnson on Christmas Day in Landover, Md., if Marcus Mariota can’t go after suffering multiple injuries Saturday. Johnson entered the league in 2009 — that’s seven years before Dak — and has a 1-8 record as a starter. Giants rookie Jaxson Dart will follow in the season-ender. None of that helps much. An 8-8-1 season would surely be a better foundation for 2026 than a 6-10-1 final record, but there’s little incentive beyond that.
If the Cowboys look broken to you, that consideration is not lost on the owner/general manager.
“The management will need to be talking to the general manager,’’ Jones said. “Seriously, I’m very disappointed, and with the way we’re structured, my role puts us here tonight. I’m extremely disappointed. But one of the reasons I’ve had some things work for me is because I will change.’’
It won’t be the tectonic plate-shifting that Cowboys fans are hoping for in the general manager‘s seat. But it will be something Jones can sell. More than 92,000 fans showed up Sunday for a game that meant nothing in the standings beyond the Chargers’ status in the AFC West. I wouldn’t expect any different in 2026, no matter what kind of record Dallas is saddled with in two weeks.
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