Cowboys’ Weeden loses ground and likely his job after lopsided defeat

The Brandon Weeden era is over for the Dallas Cowboys, which means Matt Cassel now has the chance to show he is better than Stephen McGee 2.0.

Sunday could have been a Baylor vs. Lamar-like massacre.

What the Cowboys had hoped for in the absence of Tony Romo was a decent facsimile of former Jerry Jones’ era backups Steve Beuerlein, or Jon Kitna. Or Kyle Orton, before he stole their money. Instead, they got an older Stephen McGee.

This entire season is going to swing on the next four games, and specifically how this offense plays behind another previously released backup quarterback that has been here for about a month.

Just writing that is scary.

“We’ve lost here these games, and that’s not good for the plan of getting everybody back and competing for a Super Bowl,” Jerry Jones said.

Jerry is not delusional to think this team, intact, can make Super Bowl 50. But if the Cowboys pull an Oh-fer, or a 1-and-6er, without Romo, forget the Super Bowl — the playoffs are in serious jeopardy.

This mess has the potential to be the greatest “Yeah, but” season ever under Jerry’s watch.

“We are not a good football team right now,” Jerry said.

And since we are on the subject of bad timing, defensive end Greg Hardy’s return to the NFL and debut with the Dallas Cowboys coincided with the league’s Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Despite the inherent awkwardness of that, Hardy and the return of linebacker Rolando McClain from their suspensions give this defense the type of pressure players up front it has not had since the prime time days of DeMarcus Ware.

Those two guys with linebacker Sean Lee make that front seven legit, and gave Mr. Bunchden (Tom Brady) fits in the first half. Hardy may be a PR disaster, but the guy is a QB terror — which is all you care about, so … hooray for football!

Brady was sacked five times in the first half; per the stat guys at ESPN, that is only the second time in his career he has been sacked that often in a half, and the last time that happened was 2001.

He is right.

The Cowboys kept the Patriots to just 13 points in the first half. But with the offense mastering the art of blowing it on third downs, the Patriots were going to pop some points.

If the offense could have done a thing, Sunday’s show might not have resulted in Weeden’s demotion.

Since Weeden took over, the offense progressively regressed in spectacular fashion.

When Weeden missed a wide open Terrance Williams in the end zone with 1:20 remaining in the game for what would have been a meaningless score, it solidified his run here with the team.

With Weeden in relief of Romo as the starting QB, the team is 0-4.

Great guy. Can’t play.

There is a reason why the Cleveland Browns dumped him.

Some of Weeden’s lack of production may be the play of the offensive line. Some of it may be that the running back combination of Joseph Randle and Darren McFadden has been a bust. Some of it is on wide receivers that can’t show their face without Dez outmuscling the other guys.

You can only change one of them, so Weeden must sit.

Dez may return for the first game after the bye, which will help. That will open some things up for Williams. Complete a few passes, and maybe Randle can run for more than 100 yards in a game for the first time this season.

Four games remain before Romo can come back to save the world.

The question now is whether there be a world left to save when he comes back.

This story was originally published October 11, 2015 at 9:46 PM with the headline "Cowboys’ Weeden loses ground and likely his job after lopsided defeat."