Getty Cowboys HC Mike McCarthy, owner Jerry Jones
An unwatchable, Dak Prescott-less Dallas Cowboys offense pitted with a historically laughable defense is not reason enough for Jerry Jones to make sweeping organizational changes.
Giving his weekly 105.3 The Fan radio address on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after his 2-4 team was blown off its own field in primetime, the Cowboys’ owner/general manager offered votes of confidence to under-fire head coach Mike McCarthy and defensive coordinator Mike Nolan, the latter of whom Jones somehow feels “OK” with.
“I like the way we came out last night defensively,” Jones said, via the Dallas Morning News. “I thought we had a good plan for the skills of Murray and what the Cardinals presented us. These aren’t excuses.”
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If Nolan had a plan, it failed miserably on Monday Night Football. Murray threw for two touchdowns and ran for another while running back Kenyan Drake averaged a ridiculous 8.2 yards per carry on 20 totes and twice hit paydirt. Arizona tallied 438 yards and 22 first downs across 11 drives, cruising to a 38-10 victory.
On top of doing nothing overly well, such as covering or tackling, Dallas’ lowly defense has surrendered 34-plus points in five consecutive games. At its current pace, they will have ceded 581 points by year’s end, shattering the league record (533) set by the 1981 Baltimore Colts.
What’s the answer for the Cowboys defense?
Most Points Allowed Thru 6 Games – Super Bowl Era
2020 Cowboys 218
1973 Oilers 215
2005 49ers 212
2019 Dolphins 211
While the defense was put in unfavorable spots throughout the game, the result of turnovers and a generally hapless offense, it rings hollow to laud anything about the moribund group, even by Jones’ car salesman standards.
It sounds hollower to endorse the man who hired Nolan in the first place, the coach who oversees the operation, who shouldered the entirety of blame for the Cowboys’ Week 6 no-show and dwindling championship aspirations.
Yet that’s exactly what Jones did.
“I know that the good thing is that I know what he’s experienced,” he said of McCarthy, who hoisted the Lombardi with Green Bay before being fired in 2018, via The Athletic’s Jon Machota. “He won a Super Bowl going up through the wildcard side. So you know how to adjust, overcome things when you have that kind of accomplishment on your record. What we don’t have to worry about is, is he capable of coaching a team to the ultimate, and he very much is. He’s outstanding, to say the least, with his experience. He has great, and I mean great, football fundamental basics. With that, you build on that. Those aren’t the areas that you are concerned about. I’m really not concerned about him today analyzing and knowing, given a chance to address it, what to do with the problems.”
Would Jones feel differently if Dallas didn’t remain atop a lousy division despite the brutal defeat? Probably, though he claims the absence of his “feel-good mood” isn’t quelled by the “manna from heaven being in the East.”
The bigger takeaway here is that Jerry himself isn’t bothering to smear lipstick on a glaringly ugly pig.
“We just got outplayed,” he said, via the team’s official website. “Sometimes when you have a game that you can point your finger directly at the issues and field position, turnovers, some of the just specific reasons why you didn’t win the football game, it’s easy to point to those. The facts are that we were just outplayed.”
Which begs the question on everybody’s mind: How long until the pig is slaughtered?