Dallas Cowboys got punched in the mouth with needed wake up call in loss to Cardinals
Dak Prescott’s game-sealing interception against Arizona on Sunday is going to garner headlines and possible lead the national talk shows.
More than a few frustrated fans hit me on social media and on text with comments about the shocking 28-16 loss to the Arizona Cardinals being certain proof that Prescott is not the guy to lead the Dallas Cowboys to the Super Bowl.
There is no question that the Cowboys would have liked a better version of Prescott on the final interception, which was late and too soft to receiver Brandin Cooks, allowing Cardinals linebacker Kyzir White to pick it off.
That it was Prescott’s first interception of the season provides no cover from the narrative that he is turnover machine based on his league-leading 15 interceptions from a year ago.
And he must find a way to have more success in the red zone. The Cowboys were 1 of 5 on red zone touchdowns on Sunday after going 2 of 6 in the 30-10 victory against the Jets the previous week.
But there is no way you can look at Sunday’s loss against the Cardinals and not place the majority of the blame on a defense that talked about being the latest coming of Doomsday while comparing itself to some of the greatest units in NFL after smother the Giants and the Jets by a combined score of 70-10 with a league-leading 10 sacks, forcing seven turnovers and 17 negative plays.
The Dallas defense entered Week 3 leading the NFL in scoring defense, total yards per game allowed, passing yards per game allowed, sacks, and takeaways before being humbled by a Cardinals team with a quarterback in Josh Dobbs, who was with the Cleveland Browns in training camp and preseason and only learned the offense three weeks ago.
Dobbs set the tone on the second play of the game, shaking off a sack from Cowboys star Micah Parsons and scampering 44 yards around left end.
It was the beginning of an onslaught on the ground as the Cardinals rumbled to 182 yards on the ground en route to 30 carries for 222 yards and two touchdowns for the game.
And Dobbs, who is more of a runner than a passer, took advantage of a suspect and antsy run defense with timely big plays in the passing game.
He completed 17 of 21 passes for 189 yards and a touchdown.
The Cowboys gave up runs of 26 and 44 to Dobbs and a 45-yard touchdown scamper from Rondale Moore and they were gashed for big plays of 69 and 23 yards in the air.
“I know the outcome was definitely shocking,” Parsons said. “It definitely hurts. It hurts the lose. We take ownership. I take on full ownership. I feel like I give the team a lot of energy and I feel like I gotta give more energy. I gotta bring these guys together. We got to come together. So we can play better on defense. So I take full ownership.”
Certainly, the loss of All-Pro cornerback Travon Diggs played a role in the team’s play. The Cardinals targeted his replacement DeRon Bland for big plays and got him for a pass interference penalty. It was one of six penalties on defense that helped the Cardinals included three offsides flags, defensive holding and face mask.
But this was largely a one-dimensional Cardinals team and the performance of the Cowboys defense was shocking, embarrassing and not to the standard of a championship-level unit.
The Cardinals scored every time they touched the ball in the first half as they built a 21-10 lead at halftime.
“I think we just beat ourselves,” Parsons said. “We put ourselves behind the eight ball a couple times. It just wasn’t championship football.”
Nose tackle Johnathan Hankins said the Cowboys simply “got punched in the mouth.”
Safety Jayron Kearse was at a loss for words trying to explain the Cardinals success on the ground.
“A lot went wrong. I don’t really have words, it’s just bad,” Kearse said. “Bad football, it wasn’t sound, it was just bad.”
“They ran a lot of pull schemes, got downhill and didn’t really attack us on the edge, it was just a lot of downhill running with a lot of pull schemes. We weren’t good enough — myself included. It was just bad.”
Defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence said the Cowboys were too eager at time and the Cardinals took advantage of their aggressiveness.
Quarterback Dak Prescott took offense to the notion that the Cowboys got a needed early wakeup call.
“Y’all put us on top of the world,” Prescott said to a reporter. “We know who we are, and in that same sense I’m sure the media got what they wanted. There has only been one undefeated team in this league. Ever. Yeah it sucks, it’s humbling but to say it’s a wake up call [is wrong]. We knew we had a lot of adversity and we just didn’t get it done.”
Lawrence, however, disagreed.
He also said it was good for the Cowboys to get a little comeuppance after feeling a little too good about themselves after the first two games.
“It’s actually good for us to see from being on top of the world in Week 3,” Lawrence said. “That ain’t going to get us nowhere. We have to come out not satisfied. We need to be more hungry.”
Parsons agreed with Lawrence on the team needing that early slap face and dose of reality.
But he said it’s not time to panic.
“Never stress, never worry. Lets just get better,” Parsons said. “It’s still early on the season. This is the tough part about paying national football like every team has a day. The last two weeks we were on fire and today, we came out and we got lit and that’s just the reality of football.
The reality is we have to treat every game like it is the Super Bowl. And we got to play up to our standard. We can’t play down to teams. I felt like that’s what we did.”
That was definitely the case of defense and the foundation of the humbling and shocking loss to the Cardinals.
This story was originally published September 25, 2023 at 12:00 AM.
