Getty Cowboys VP Stephen Jones, HC Mike McCarthy
In the wake of the Dallas Cowboys‘ embarrassing Week 4 home loss to the Browns, Stephen Jones has multiple choices to cure what ails the spiraling squad, to help right the ship before it smacks into an iceberg:
A) Fire embattled defensive coordinator Mike Nolan.
B) Fire an assistant coach.
C) Cut a current defensive starter.
D) All of the above.
Which is it for Cowboys’ executive vice president?
E) None of the above.
“We just have to be better. We have to go to work. Now’s not the time to think about things like that,” Jones said Monday on 105.3 The Fan. “I’m very convicted about this staff. I’m very convicted about this team. But right now we’re not playing winning football.”
Teams that play winning football typically don’t surrender 307 rushing yards and 49 points to the Cleveland Browns. At home. Teams that play winning football typically don’t let the opponent score via trickery. Twice.
Yet here they are, sitting at 1-3, a fluke onside kick away from a winless start in a hyped 2020 campaign that, for another year, carried championship aspirations.
Under Nolan, the Cowboys have regressed from the underachievers they were with former defensive boss Rod Marinelli. His players can’t cover, can’t tackle, can’t maintain gap responsibility, can’t force a turnover — can’t get off the field.
Star pass-rusher DeMarcus Lawrence spoke out after Sunday’s game and denounced a “soft” Cowboys defense lacking in grit and toughness. Jones doesn’t necessarily disagree with that assessment in spite of his apparent support of the status quo.
“We’re just not executing. We got a big challenge in front of us,” he said. “I think coach McCarthy said it best, ‘right now the football we’re playing is not winning football.’ There’s a pattern to it. We’re losing the turnover battle. I think we’re negative seven for the year. We’re starting slow. I think we’ve only had the lead for like 15 minutes out of 240 minutes. We’re not stopping the run. That’s just a bad recipe. We’re losing the time of possession. We just have a lot of work to do here. I think we do have a talented team but that doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean you’re a good team.”
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Jones Delivers Message to Fans
Taking him at his word, this means it’s unlikely Dallas brings in free-agent Pro Bowl safety Earl Thomas. Or explores the trade market. Or even benches a slogging starter.
It sounds like Jones expects the team to fix itself in Week 5 when the 0-4 Giants come to AT&T Stadium, in what is now a must-win affair for blame-accepting head coach Mike McCarthy.
“We need to start games better. We need to do a better job of bringing our preparation (to the game). That starts with me,” McCarthy said Sunday.
Move to 2-3, and the season — especially in the lowly NFC East — is suddenly very much alive. Beat the rival Giants, and provide hope to an increasingly frustrated fan base, the feelings of which Jones attempted to soothe.
“I just think that we’re not as far away as it seems, but we do have a lot of work to do. And we’re very confident in this football team in spite of what we’ve seen in the first four games. We really believe we’ve got a great head coach, a great staff, and a great group of players that will get the job done,” he said on 105.3 The Fan.
“Like I said, the one redeeming quality is that it does show week in and week out, in spite of the holes we seem to be digging ourselves, we put ourselves (in position) with a chance to win the game at the end of these games when you wouldn’t think we had a chance. These guys will fight. We just have to get off to better starts and we certainly got to protect the ball, and we also got to create turnovers. That’s something Mike (McCarthy) stresses. We’re not getting the job done for whatever reason that is. I can assure you this, Mike will have them hard at work.”
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Follow Zack Kelberman on Twitter: @KelbermanNFL