Dallas City News

The Dallas Cowboys lost on Sunday night to the San Francisco 49ers. On one level that is very frustrating. On a different and perhaps deeper level though, it is troubling. It’s not that the loss itself was troubling, but that it was as predictable as it was, and that the Cowboys were blown out in the second half is highly concerning.

Consider that nobody, generally speaking here, believed in the Cowboys on Sunday night.

At the moment the Cowboys are a group that everyone gets to walk by, point at and take their turn humiliating with the whole world watching. It is a weekly tradition that we are constantly on the wrong end of.

This entire disposition is reflected in our latest stock report. Let’s get to it.

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Stock Down: Dak Prescott

There have been many an argument over the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys and his merit to hold the position that he does, and that is true for Dak Prescott in the way it was for his predecessor Tony Romo and anybody else who has had to wear the crown that Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman helped make so heavy.

But this isn’t about pity or self-loathing. All arguments and debates aside, it is universally agreed upon (at least it better be) that Dak Prescott is playing bad football right now. Awful.

There were a number of reasons that Dallas lost on Sunday night, but he was certainly chief among them. It can be true that he has very little to work with (generally speaking), but at the end of the day he has to find a way to thrive or at least not make the situation worse. Both of Prescott’s interceptions on Sunday night were inexcusable in every single sense. He now has a three-game streak going with two or more interceptions (so does Tampa Bay’s Baker Mayfield, coincidentally) which is something that the franchise has not seen since Troy Aikman in 1992 (which the broadcast noted).

This season is far from that one and the Cowboys seem destined for the exact opposite sort of result. The quarterback has to be better. Plain and simple.

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Stock Down: Terence Steele

We can only say the same things so many times and have already noted on plenty occasions that Terence Steele might be the weak link on the offensive line. Handling Nick Bosa is no easy task, but my goodness Steele got worked all over the place. This is not to take away blame from Dak Prescott, but the first interception happened largely because of the pressure that Steele allowed to get in Prescott’s face (it doesn’t justify the poor decision).

The Cowboys cannot count on the second-most veteran member of their offensive line right now, a homegrown product playing on his second contract with the team.

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Stock Down: John Fassel

All told the Dallas Cowboys had four penalties on their kickoff team. They formed an improper formation twice, once while receiving and another while kicking off. Hey, at least they are balanced.

Brandon Aubrey also had a mishit that led to San Francisco starting with prime field position, perhaps the least disastrous of all four penalties, and additionally had an illegal forward pass authored by KaVontae Turpin.

It is hindsight to say that we only like the good aggression from John Fassel, but this is all teetering into the days of 2020 where he had his group flying at 100 miles per hour all of the time. Aggression and creativity are good and trying to find a spark is noble, but if you are this undisciplined in the process you are only going to cause more harm than good.

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Stock Down: KaVontae Turpin

Not only did Turpin have the illegal forward pass, but he also had one of the better passes of the night from Dak Prescott hit him where he should have caught it. Had Turpin hauled that pass in who knows what would have happened, but he is a liability in some sense.

To be clear this is not Turpin’s fault. It feels unfair to blame him specifically. While he offers an interesting change of pace and dynamic option for the team to work with and implement, placing an enormous amount of responsibility on him was a risky proposition at best. It is one of the many reasons that the offseason decisions from the front office were poor.

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Stock Down: Ezekiel Elliott and Dalvin Cook

Once again we can only say the same thing so many times and at this point Ezekiel Elliott simply is not offering anything significantly productive to the offense. Consider that he had his longest run of the season on Sunday night and that it went for 11 yards.

That run was only one yard shy of Dalvin Cook’s total on the night as he had six carries for 12 yards. It was never this author’s opinion that he was going to save the day, but it was understandable the need people felt to simply do something different. Like with Turpin, building a house on this foundation was a bold choice.

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Stock Down: Eric Kendricks

It seemed rather apparent that Kyle Shanahan wanted to attack Eric Kendricks with motion and by creating certain favorable matchups.

Similarly to our last few points, it’s hard to really blame Kendricks; however, he was the marquee (using that word loosely) free agent who the team brought in over the offseason and has the best understanding of Mike Zimmer’s overall operation. It is fair to hold him to a high standard and on Sunday night he did not live up to it.

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Stock Down: Donovan Wilson

We have seen quite the fall from grace here. Donovan Wilson is lacking in coverage and offers the occasional big hit to “make up” for it which makes this all feel like the worst days of the Dallas Cowboys defense that we struggle to forget. On one of George Kittle’s big runs after the catch in this game he had a cutback that took forever to happen, but it still caught Wilson flat-footed and left him chasing. Another second contract.

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Static Stock: Trevon Diggs

It is hard to say that any Dallas Cowboys defenders played a good game, but Trevon Diggs was quite physical throughout the actual contest which was good to see. Obviously he has taken criticism that he is not of that quality in the past.

But all of that good will was burnt up in a moment’s notice following the game when Trevon confronted WFAA’s Mike Leslie for a tweet of Mike’s that came during the game. This was not the first instance this season of a member of the Cowboys organization lashing out at a member of the media which is representative of the standard that Jerry Jones set when he threatened the radio hosts that he did two weeks ago.

From a football standpoint, Trevon Diggs was more than fine on Sunday night. Unfortunately this team is showing us that there are many non-football things going on.

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Stock Up: Chauncey Golston

This might have been the best game that Chauncey Golston played for the Dallas Cowboys. It is a shame it was lost in all of the mess. He was tough, physical and one of the only players who stood tall.

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Stock Up: CeeDee Lamb

People will say that much of Lamb’s work came in “garbage time” and I don’t know what to really say to that at this point. I don’t completely disagree with it, the times are just weird. He showed fight in ways that people doubted he could. That is a positive thing.