The Dallas Cowboys were 10 point favorites over the Denver Broncos on Sunday and with Dak Prescott returning to the lineup following a one game absence, this game seemed like a guaranteed victory for the red hot Cowboys. Despite every Cowboy fan knowing all too well that there are no guarantees in the National Football league, the Cowboys had just won 6 games in a row and Cowboys fans were starting to believe in something. The last Cowboys victory was an emotionally charged, gut wrenching win on the road in Minnesota and it had many fans believing one thing; that this team was different. Different from the Cowboys teams that have disappointed us the past 25 years. Different from the teams that were constantly overhyped and yet consistently underachieved. This really felt like a team of destiny. That perception was altered somewhat when the Denver Broncos rolled into to town on Sunday and completely rolled over the hometown Dallas Cowboys.
It wasn’t just that the Cowboys lost. It is after all hard to win games in the NFL and after six straight victories, losing to the Broncos was always a possibility. It was the manner in which they lost. They were dominated in the trenches against a second string offensive line and a depleted defense line for a Broncos team that had just traded away their best pass-rusher Von Miller. The high powered Dallas Cowboys offense was shut out until late in the fourth quarter when they salvaged some pride with a couple of garbage time touchdown drives. The seemingly improved Dallas Cowboys defense had relapsed into their 2020 form. This game started off poorly for the Cowboys and then spiraled out of control with the score being 30-0 for Denver at one point in the fourth quarter.
So, what went wrong for the Dallas Cowboys? The easier question to answer might have been what didn’t go wrong, but here are just a few things that come to mind.
- Dak Prescott played very poorly
- Wide Receivers dropped passes
- Terence Steele struggled at Left Tackle
- La’el Collins was rusty at Right Tackle
- The Cowboys couldn’t stop the run
- The Cowboys missed 14 tackles
- Trevon Diggs got beat repeatedly
- The Cowboys squandered a blocked punt
- The Denver Broncos out hit and out hustled the Cowboys
- Broncos fans out cheered Cowboys fans….Embarrassing!!!
That is quite the list of things that went wrong. We all saw it, there is no need to dissect it or over analyze it. It was a really bad day at the office for the Dallas Cowboys. It is not a reason for fans to panic. It is certainly not a reason to discount all of the great things that have happened up to this point in the season which have led to the Cowboys having a 6-2 record and being in contention for a first round bye in the playoffs. At least not yet it isn’t. What we fans need to avoid is trying to explain it all. When things go wrong (and even when things go right) we all have the need to try to explain it. It has to make sense to us. There has to be something that can be identified and fixed so we can say “we lost because of this and if we do that we will win.” Everything tends to be oversimplified there always needs to be a root cause for all the things that went wrong. The questions we ask ourselves, or rather the blame we assign and the excuses we make, are endless:
- Was Dak rusty after a two week layoff?
- Did the calf injury impact Prescott’s performance?
- Did the Broncos figure out the blueprint to stop the Cowboys offense?
- Was the team overconfident?
- Was the team unprepared to play?
- Did the blocked punt play change the entire outcome of the game?
- Did switching Terence Steele to Left Tackle throw off the cohesiveness of the entire offensive line?
- Is Trevon Diggs overrated?
- Is this team not who we thought they were?
The truth is, there is no one thing that determined the outcome of that game. There is no cause and effect that can explain exactly what happened and there is no one person to blame. The Cowboys got beat and they got beat badly. Dak Prescott and several other players did not play well…at all. There are those that will say the Cowboys needed this to happen to them. That they needed to be humbled. That this was inevitable and it is better to lose like this now rather than in the playoffs when it counts. That is total and utter nonsense. This team wants to win every game and they play to win every game. These are all professional athletes and professional coaches. This is a team that won a total of 6 games last year. They do not need to be humbled. The do not need any extra motivation to perform. That is innate for a group of people in a profession dominated by natural competitors.
There are plenty of teams that have won championships without having gotten blown out in the regular season. There are also plenty of teams that have won championships after having gotten blown out at some point. This game is not the be all and end all. What this is, is a challenge. It is an opportunity. One of many any given team will face during the course of a season, none more significant than any other. The teams’ destiny lies ahead of them now. How they respond to this loss will determine if this is the beginning of their downfall, a source of motivation going forward, or if it is an anomaly that cannot be explained and has no deeper purpose. There were other teams in the league that faced similar challenges this past week. Not all of them will crash and burn, not all of them will rise to become champions. It is quite possible that none of them will veer towards either path but instead this week of games will have no significance on the season as a whole.
It really does suck that the Dallas Cowboys lost this weekend and that they lost so badly. But it is one game, and we as fans have to look at the big picture. The team is 6-2 with a 3.5 game lead in the division. They have an a great chance to make the playoffs and very good opportunity to compete for a first round bye. Let’s focus on that and worry about losses if they come in bunches or if they begin to exceed the number of victories going forward. Until a large enough sample size of games following this brutal loss is gathered, let’s not waste our time and energy trying to determine what this game means in the grand scheme of things.
*Photo by Joe Glorioso All-Pro Reels https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode