Who are the Dallas Cowboys? Not even they know after devastating loss to Vikings.
It’s nine games into the 2019 and the Dallas Cowboys are still unproven, uneven and searching for an identity.
Sure, they are tied with the Philadelphia Eagles atop the NFC East at 5-4.
But that truck you hear is the Cowboys backing up into that tie following a devastating 28-24 loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday night.
It was an opportunity for the Cowboys to build some real momentum with a three-game winning streak while proving they could finally beat a good team get a statement win, letting the rest of the league and themselves know they are real contenders.
But alas, the Cowboys lost to a Vikings team that moved to 7-3 on the season and is trending in the right direction with their fourth win in the last five games.
The Cowboys don’t know who they are or who they want to be.
Quarterback Dak Prescott passed for 397 yards and three touchdowns but he had the game possibly taken away from him by his own coaching staff when the Cowboys bogged down a potential-game winning drive with back-to-back runs to an ineffective Ezekiel Elliott, who had just 47 yards on 20 carries.
He acknowledged it was a missed opportunity that he hopes the Cowboys can learn from.
“Absolutely,” Prescott said. “But we are tied for first place in our division. The outcome was not what we wanted. We are going to grow from it and be better because of it.”
Good luck. The Cowboys are going to need it as they still have just one win against a team with a winning record.
That 37-10 victory against the Eagles last month doesn’t look so good anymore. Sure, it snapped a three-game losing streak, which followed a three-game winning streak to open the season.
But it was more about the Cowboys’ continued dominance over bad teams and members of the NFC East than anything else.
Since the start of the 2018 season, Cowboys are 9-1 against division opponents and 6-9 against all others.
In 2019, they are 4-0 in the NFC East and 1-4 against everyone else. That one win came against the 2-7 Miami Dolphins.
Three of the four losses were against the respectable likes of the New Orleans Saints (7-2), Green Bay Packers (8-2) and the Vikings. Of course, there’s also the inexplicable and still-unforgivable loss to the lowly New York Jets (2-7).
And this is not even considering their penchant for slow starts. The Cowboy trailed the Vikings 14-0 and 17-14 halftime. They are now 0-4 when trailing at halftime this season.
None of this escaped disappointed owner Jerry Jones.
“We know Philadelphia’s coming, and we know the caliber of the players we’re playing,” Jones said. “From the standpoint of numbers, from the standpoint of where you stand, this was a big game for us, and it’s going to make it that much harder to get where we want to go.”
The Cowboys still control their destiny as they would win the division if they win out over the last seven games of the season.
But that is no easy proposition given that they only have two games left with NFC East teams and amid a tough stretch of four games in 18 days through Thanksgiving beginning with Sunday’s loss.
They play at the Detroit Lions on Sunday and at the New England Patriots on Nov. 24 before hosting the Buffalo Bills on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28.
They then have 10 days off before playing at the Chicago Bears on Dec. 5, then host the Los Angeles Rams on Dec. 15 before a trip to Philadelphia on Dec. 22 and the season finale at home against Washington Redskins on Dec. 29.
But this was an opportunity to build confidence with their second three-game winning streak of the season and make a statement they are ready to be among the elite teams in the NFC.
The Cowboys failed and now they are left scrambling and wondering just who they are, not to mention who they need to be with the game on the line.
“I’m concerned because we played a good team (in the Vikings), it would have been a big win for us,” Jones said.
“Even though we’re at home, it could have been a big win for us to get this win, and especially come back and do it with a lot of good performances we had tonight. But we were short and that means we’ve got a bigger challenge these next seven ballgames.”
