Dallas Cowboys vs. Detroit Lions day after thoughts: Hope feels far away right now
We have all experienced devastating Dallas Cowboys losses. Pick your favorite. Maybe the game that came to mind for you right away was when Dez caught it. Perhaps it was the Tony Romo bobble. You may be thinking about the 1994 NFC Championship Game. Odds are high that it was a playoff loss and we all are well aware that there have been many of those to choose from over the last 30 years (almost).
When you think about regular season losses they obviously do not hit the same, but the finales from 2011-2013 are up there. Obviously 44-6 holds a horribly special place in history. Even then though, those games were effective playoff games with the losses that came from them cementing a season officially ending.
It is extremely difficult to find one of the most disappointing losses in Cowboys franchise history that incited so much devastation to have happened in the month of October. There is simply too much football left to be played for a punch to land so squarely before Halloween even comes. But it kind of feels like we are here now.
Sure, the Cowboys are still well alive in a technical and literal sense with regards to this season and the playoff chase. Maybe someday we will laugh about how we all overreacted on October 14th, 2024. We can only hope (in more than one way).
Sunday’s loss to the Detroit Lions felt like a different kind of thing to process for the Cowboys, but we will do our best anyway. This is our Day After Thoughts discussion where we let a night’s rest and many cups of coffee power how we feel about the action that we just saw.
We will get into three thoughts specifically.
It gets old to blame the front office, but this falls squarely and mostly on them
The Dallas Cowboys have a lot of problems right now. Pick one. Any of them. The list is long. But it can be true that players are not living up to expectation, that coaches are failing to raise the overall standard, and that all of it was built on a shaky foundation by the “work” that the front office did over the course of the offseason. Yes. It can all be true.
The front office very infamously and very notoriously did nothing substantial to help the team over the offseason by way of roster moves. What’s more is that they delayed paying their superstars, players who play very expensive positions, to quite literally the eleventh hour and as a result paid significantly more (in all likelihood based on NFL trends) than if they had been proactive on these fronts.
To make matters worse they seemingly gaslit fans at every turn about the potential of things and created an environment that is incredibly untenable. You can have your issues with Mike McCarthy, we all do, but sending him into a contract year was asking for drama to circle the organization around every loss. It wasn’t a stable decision.
The sins of the offseason cannot be undone in one fell swoop, especially in the fall months. At this point the bed has been made. It remains very frustrating.
There is no denying that this team needs something to change if they want to seriously contend
With all of that being said, a serious change could go a long way.
Dak Prescott noted after the game how similar to 2018 this start has felt for the team. That group fell to 3-4 before their bye week and odds are this one will get there when they emerge from theirs given that the next game is on the road against the big, bad San Francisco 49ers.
It was at that moment six years ago when Dallas sent a future first-round pick to the then-Oakland Raiders in exchange for Amari Cooper. Cooper jolted the offense and the Philadelphia Eagles collapsed and everything lined up for the Cowboys to not only win the NFC East but a playoff game for the first time in the Dak Prescott era as well.
Cooper saved that season to put things mildly, and obviously we have seen how all of that turned out. But the time is certainly now for an infusion of help somewhere, wide receiver is certainly an option, before it is too late. Trying to go at this whole thing with the roster as it lies would be hard to justify, but perhaps that is what the Cowboys are going to do.
With the team at the bye week it would stand to reason that now would be the time to reflect and make a move. We will see if they have any intention of doing so.
It does not feel like an exaggeration to say that hope is at a real low relative to recent history
We are finishing how we started and noting that the emotions, vibes, whatever you want to call them, are rather bad for the Cowboys right now.
The Detroit Lions are the talk of the town and sitting at the center of the NFL these days. They are the latest team to have paraded through AT&T Stadium and celebrated just about from start to finish at the home team’s expense. The Cowboys often get compared to teams like the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Lakers, Duke, Alabama, all because of the massive fan bases that those teams have. Where the Cowboys are different is that each of those teams has climbed their respective mountain sometime within the last 15ish years. Those fans watch people root against their team all of the time, but they have also touched the other end of the spectrum. If you are a Cowboys fan of around 40 years or younger, you have only gotten the negative side of this whole deal.
And things like this are easier to tolerate and stomach when it feels like there is some sort of direction that the team is headed in. But given the state of things and the way they have been since the playoff loss, it feels like we are lost at sea with no help in any sort of sight.
To be frank, it stinks.