DETROIT — No one would argue that the Cowboys’ defense today isn’t substantially better than the unit that took the field at Denver in November. That didn’t keep the Cowboys from surrendering 44 points once again, allowing the Detroit Lions to take charge early in a 44-30 win for the home team that can only be considered costly for Dallas.
Maybe the team was trying for the impossible in its quest to beat Philadelphia, Kansas City and Detroit (the last two Super Bowl winners and a 15-2 team from a year ago) in a span of 12 days. The fact that the Cowboys cleared the first two hurdles but did not come close on the third, even though the Lions have been struggling as a third-place NFC North team this season, says a little something about life on the road.
To become a good team in the NFL, a club must first become good at several different things. The Cowboys have managed to show off that progress in wins over the Eagles and Chiefs, but a good road team? That’s not in the Cowboys’ wheelhouse for 2025. Dallas is now 2-5 on the road with its only wins coming against the Jets and Raiders, far from the cream of the crop in the NFL. Since the club’s last two travel dates are at Washington Dec. 25 and at the Giants Jan. 4, it’s fair to say the Cowboys’ next road win against a good team will come in 2026.
Maybe there remains a sliver of a hope that it falls in January 2026, a playoff victory that caps the comeback this team has demonstrated in so many ways since hitting the bye week with a record of 3-5-1. But falling back to 6–6-1 with Thursday’s loss, the East is not quite so winnable. The Eagles could lose at Buffalo and in LA against the Chargers and still win the East by beating Washington and the Raiders in their remaining games. Even a Cowboys team going unbeaten over its last four games could not catch that.
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“We’re disappointed because we let an opportunity to win a game on the road against a good team get away from us,” head coach Brian Schottenheimer said. “We knew the game was going to come down to a couple of things. We had to take care of the football and take it away. We didn’t do a very good job with that. And we had to win the trenches, and we didn’t do that, either.”
The Cowboys lost the turnover fight, 3-0, although Dak Prescott’s second interception in the waning seconds of a 14-point defeat was meaningless. What did matter was that the Cowboys looked ready to stop the Lions’ run early, to the point that head coach Dan Campbell was rarely even calling running plays. The Lions opened with five straight passes before a handoff to Jahmyr Gibbs lost two yards, and Detroit settled for a field goal.
But the Lions found too many ways to exploit the defense as the game wore on. Passes to Gibbs over the middle, passes to Amon-Ra St. Brown, making a nice recovery from an ankle injury, on the sideline, passes to Jameson Williams just about anywhere. Jared Goff finished with 309 yards passing on just 34 attempts, was sacked only once and never intercepted.
That’s not the kind of defense Dallas showcased against the Eagles and the Chiefs.
Meanwhile, it took forever to get the Cowboys’ offense untracked. Even if Dak finished with 376 yards passing, he was sacked five times, picked off twice and the Cowboys got nothing but field goals in the opening half. Before Dallas scored its first touchdown in the third quarter and began to belatedly trade punches with the Lions, Detroit already held a 27-9 lead.
That’s not the first slow start that has plagued Dallas. The trailed Philly 21-0 before staging that memorable comeback for a 24-21 win, the game that really ignited the Cowboys’ playoff hopes.
Now those chances have slipped back into the long-shot category. None of the three current wild cards in the NFC has a record worse than 8-3-1. Dallas is a full 2 1/2 games behind that with four to go.
After a few extra days’ rest, the Cowboys won’t play again until they host Minnesota on Dec. 14. That won’t be near the challenge the team faced in dealing with Detroit, which scored points on eight of 11 possessions Thursday night.
That game will present an opportunity to get back over the .500 mark for the second time this season, but it’s getting late to be celebrating those achievements. The Cowboys start games late and they started this season late. For all the recent accomplishments, this could be remembered as the year the Cowboys beat two Super Bowl teams but didn’t manage much else along the way. But another string of victories, even against lighter competition, might give Dallas the chance to change that perception.
Winning tough road games, though, looks like it is going to have to wait.
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