The season is officially over for the Dallas Cowboys. After securing a winning record for the first (and only) time on Thanksgiving against the Kansas City Chiefs, the Cowboys proceeded to lose four of their last five games, with their last defeat coming courtesy of the New York Giants on Sunday. They finished the year with a 7-9-1 record, capping off their second-straight losing season. That\u2019s a disappointing result for a team that was hoping to improve on Mike McCarthy\u2019s 7-10 finish a year ago, especially considering Dak Prescott was healthy all season. It didn\u2019t go down how we hoped, and the season finale wasn\u2019t any different. Here are 10 thoughts on the Cowboys\u2019 34-17 loss to the Giants.<\/p>\n
1. Dak doesn\u2019t finish strong<\/p>\n
It was puzzling that the coaching staff opted to start Dak Prescott in this meaningless finale. Securing good health for an older fella who\u2019s had some injury issues in recent seasons seemed like it would take precedence over finishing out the season. Plus, wouldn\u2019t they want to get a better look at their young backup, Joe Milton III? There was some buzz that they wanted Prescott to finish as the league\u2019s leader in passing yardage, who entered the week with a 34-yard advantage over Matthew Stafford. Unfortunately, Prescott did not have a good game, going 7\/11 with just 70 yards in one half of football. Stafford passed him in the afternoon games.<\/p>\n
2. Blue finds the end zone<\/p>\n
Rookie running back Jaydon Blue has been an afterthought this season, as the coaches haven\u2019t felt good about trusting him to take the field much, as he has been out of action for 12 games this year. Against the Giants, not only did he play, but he started after the team put Javonte Williams and Malik Davis on injured reserve late in the week. The rookie impressed early as he had a nifty 27-yard run and a nine-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. He finished with 11 carries for 76 yards in the first half. Unfortunately, the second half did not go so well as he ran the ball five times for -12 yards.<\/p>\n
Blue wasn\u2019t the only rookie running back to carry the ball on Sunday as seventh-round draft pick Phil Mafah made his NFL debut. The former Clemson back only had five carries for 18 yards (3.6 ypc), but one of those carries was a one-yard goal-line touchdown. While the efficiency wasn\u2019t what we were hoping, both the Cowboys\u2019 rookie running backs scored their first pro touchdowns, so that\u2019s nice.<\/p>\n
4. Flournoy is a good WR3<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s leading receiver in this game was second-year player Ryan Flournoy, who finished the game with five catches for 68 yards. The Cowboys\u2019 young receiver did not play on Christmas, and he\u2019s been quiet since racking up over 100 yards against the Lions. It was good to see him with a decent finish as he\u2019s proven himself worthy to be the team\u2019s number three wide receiver behind CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens, assuming the team extends Pickens in the offseason.<\/p>\n
5. The hat trick for Clowney<\/p>\n
In one of the better free agent pickups this season for the Cowboys, Jadeveon Clowney continues to play hard for this football team. The 32-year old veteran sacked Giants quarterback Jaxon Dart three times. Oddly enough, it would have been enough to hit his six-sack ($250,000) and eight-sack ($750,000) incentives as he finished the year with 8.5 sacks; however, those incentives also include a stipulation requiring the Cowboys to make the playoffs. Regardless, he\u2019s been a strong contributor on an otherwise shaky defense, and hopefully, he will be a part of this team in 2026.<\/p>\n
While Cowboys fans will continue to fantasize about trading for Maxx Crosby, the front office will have different thoughts. Re-signing Clowney may be one of them, using a top draft resource on a new edge rusher may be another, but building off a promising rookie season from Donovan Ezeiruaku is definitely something the Cowboys are counting on. Ezieruaku was having a solid game and had a sack early in the game that was discounted after the Cowboys accepted a holding penalty. Unfortunately, his day ended early because he was ejected in the third quarter for ripping off the helmet of Giants offensive linemen Greg Van Roten.<\/p>\n
7. Turpin almost houses it<\/p>\n
After teasing us in the preseason of his rookie season, former USFL MVP KaVontae Turpin did not have a return touchdown in each of his first two seasons in the league. Then, last year, he had a punt return (in the season opener against Cleveland) and a kickoff return (that infamous spin move against Washington) for a touchdown. It was good enough to earn All-Pro honors on special teams and land him an extension this past offseason. Unfortunately, Turpin didn\u2019t have a return touchdown this year, but against the Giants, he took a kickoff 84 yards for the second-longest return of his career. It looked like he was taking it to the house, but somehow, Giants defensive back Art Green managed to run him down from behind.<\/p>\n
8. Milton got the 2nd half<\/p>\n
With Prescott only playing the first half, the Cowboys let Milton handle the reps in the second half. It wasn\u2019t a good showing for the second-year quarterback as he was off-target on many of his throws. The offense, in general, did not look good, but it would have been nice to see just a taste of goodness from the Cowboys\u2019 young developmental quarterback. Milton finished the game 7\/13 for 73 yards and one interception.<\/p>\n
9. Another miss for Aubrey<\/p>\n
Brandon Aubrey is fantastic. He only missed two field goals in his rookie season, and they both came in the season finale. This year, he started a perfect 16\/16 through his first eight games this year. And through his first 13 games, he had only missed two field goals. Oddly, the team\u2019s All-Pro kicker didn\u2019t finish the year strong. He missed another field goal on Sunday to give him four misses over his last four games. It\u2019s not like him to be off like this, but he\u2019ll get a fresh start next year.<\/p>\n
10. Securing the no. 12 pick<\/p>\n
Losing is never fun, but it does have its perks. The loss, combined with the win by the Atlanta Falcons, drops the Cowboys into the no. 12 spot in the draft order, improving their draft positioning. The Cowboys could have gotten some additional help if the Miami Dolphins had beaten the New England Patriots (moving them to the no. 11 spot), but they couldn\u2019t get the job done. That would have been nice, but 12th is pretty nice. That\u2019s where they landed Micah Parsons in 2021, so who knows, maybe another elite edge rusher could be in the cards come April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The season is officially over for the Dallas Cowboys. After securing a winning record for the first (and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,32877,104,103],"class_list":["post-111415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys-scores-and-results","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}