Familiar Ending to Another Cowboys Season

If you have been a Cowboys fan for more than a minute, then the feeling you have this morning is one you are all too familiar with.

For a 28th straight campaign, the Cowboys season comes to an end with a loss. This time in the first round of the playoffs, but a loss regardless.

However, unlike the two before this one, this season ended with a very loud thud, as they got out played, out coaches and outscored by a Green Bay team that made the playoffs on the final day of the season.

On Sunday afternoon in a home playoff game your local favorites showed little fight, until it was way too late, in a blowout loss to a team that finished just one game over .500 this year.

But while I was blinded by some of the success this team has had while going 12-5 this season, they are flawed, and it all starts with the quarterback.

The offense had to be simplified for Dak Prescott in the offseason, which allowed him to put up monster numbers. But, against the best teams on their regular-season schedule – Philadelphia, Detroit, Buffalo, Miami, Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco, Prescott led the team to just three wins in seven starts. He threw six of his nine interceptions in those seven games.

Prescott is a good quarterback, but there is a reason he was a fourth-round pick. He’s just not good enough in the biggest of games. He has one year left on his contract; it is time for the Cowboys to think about an exit strategy and not about signing him to another contract worth more than his play dictates.

But he is, by far, not the only problem with the 2023 Cowboys.

Here, let me bullet point a few for you.

• The defense was clearly overrated. Yes, they didn’t give up a lot of points, but when they struggled outdoors and against good teams, they were not very good. Against the seven teams listed above, and Arizona, they allowed 351.9 yards per game. That is more than 50 yards above their season average and would have had them ranked 24th in yards allowed per game this season.

• Cowboys edge Micah Parsons was clearly overworked this season and it showed in his play down the stretch. It is time we admit that Parsons is a linebacker that can rush the passer. At just 240-pounds, he doesn’t carry the size to smash offensive tackles, guards, tight ends and running backs for 700-plus snaps a season. Like the last two years, his first two months were amazing, but the final two have been mediocre, averaging just 3.2 tackles per game over the final nine games of his season, including just two tackles on Sunday against Green Bay.

• Tony Pollard is not an RB1. We can love the way he runs and what he brings to the offense, but he showed this year that he is better suited to be the change of pace guy that can get loose than the featured back. I certainly wouldn’t pay him as an RB1 going forward.

• The Cowboys pash rush seemed to disappear against offensive lines that were either banged up or just not very good. Against Green Bay, they got pressure on quarterback Jordan Love on the second play of the game and a few other times. But for the most part, Love had the time and pocket to pick the Dallas defense apart. He isn’t the only QB to do that this season, just see the games Brock Purdy, Geno Smith, Sam Howell and Tua Tagovailoa put up.

• What a season by back-up corner DaRon Bland. But his amazing stats – nine interceptions, five returned for touchdowns (a new NFL record), probably cover up what was just an average season. His 53.9-percent completions allowed, was just 18th best in the league this season, while the 1.4 yards per reception he allowed was 70th best for cornerbacks with at least 360 snaps. He took a lot of chances and that cost the Cowboys a lot of yards. In the end, was it worth the trade off?

• The run defense was ass. There is no better way to put it. They weren’t good at home. They weren’t good on the road. They weren’t good in the playoffs. They were below average up the middle in the box, with defensive tackles Johnathan Hankins, Osa Odighizuwa and Neville Gallimore, and linebackers Damone Clark and Markquese Bell. Clark and Bell were both undersized and playing out of position after the injury to Leighton Vander Esch. The Cowboys also wasted a first-round draft pick last season on a run stopping defensive tackle that is starting to look like he may not be able to play at the NFL level. In the 14 games with starter Johnathan Hankins in the lineup, Smith averaged just 17 snaps. In the 312 snaps he did play in the regular season, he had 13 tackles, three tackles for loss and one sack.

Finally, this team was caught unprepared too many times. They overcame it against the Chargers, Seahawks and Lions, but could not against Arizona, San Francisco, Buffalo or Green Bay. That falls on the coaching staff, and ultimately the head coach and after four seasons of Mike McCarthy, the Cowboys are no better than they were under Jason Garrett or Wade Phillips or Chan Gailey or even Bill Parcels – multiple NFC East championships, multiple playoff berths and no appearances in a conference title game, much less a Super Bowl.

It has been this way since Jimmy Johnson left, even though Barry Switzer won the franchise one more Super Bowl. Will it ever change?

Some day. Only that day is not today.

So, for another season it is on to the exit interviews earlier than expected.