Cowboys owner Jerry Jones saw the same disastrous performance in Santa Clara that the team’s fans did, but he has a very different take from most on what to do about it moving forward.
Dak Prescott’s 14-of-24 passing numbers and his one-touchdown-to-three-interceptions ratio, in a game that the entire organization had built up as a monumentally important measuring stick within the NFC, have renewed longstanding doubts about the quarterback’s viability. And despite posting blowout wins in two-thirds of their outings, the offense under head coach Mike McCarthy’s play-calling has yet to really find itself.
It’s led many within Cowboys Nation to wonder out loud- just five weeks into the season- if it’s time to blow it all up and make a radical change, either in the starting lineup or on the coaching staff… or both.
Jones doesn’t see it that way.
“Do we have the ability to do this? I think that’s the question every fan should be asking,” Jones told 105.3 The Fan’s Shan and RJ. “Do we have the players? Do we have the healthy players that can get this done? Do we have the players that can do the protections and the blocks? The answer is: we do.”
On paper anyway, he seems to be right. At least most Cowboys thought so as recently as a few weeks ago. Having utterly dismantled the Giants and Jets in back-to-back contests to start the season by a combined 70-10 score, Dallas was sitting at or very near the top of most power rankings, a true front-runner for the conference crown.
Their no-show of a showing versus San Francisco erased that talk. Even the eternal optimist Jones was able to say as much.
“When something tells you what it is, don’t try to dream that it’s something else. What I’m trying to say is: we can do better than what we did out there Sunday night. That’s a given. We can do better, we have the potential to do better. We have the preparation to do better. We didn’t do it at all,” he admitted, “Sunday night.”
But with Dallas’s Super Bowl drought having now surpassed 10,000 days, Jones says he is convinced the organization is as close as ever to finally getting back there with Prescott at the helm.
“Let me be very affirmative: I completely believe that we have the quarterback that can take us where we want to go,” the billionaire said.
“Dak Prescott is a quarterback that can get us to the Super Bowl. That’s the way that’s going to be. We have other quarterbacks on that roster, and players that certainly [are capable] if something should happen to Dak. But I want to be real clear: Dak is very capable of making this team be where we want it to go.”
Over the course of his 20-minute weekly call-in, Jones also gave a definitive vote of confidence to the coaching staff as a whole, pointing out that the team is just five games into McCarthy’s new tenure as the offense’s play-caller.
Would Jerry Jones consider the possibility of having Brian Schottenheimer call plays with Mike McCarthy go back to CEO role? “No. In any way, no,” he said on 105.3 The Fan.
— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) October 10, 2023
“We’re just getting started,” Jones reminded. “We did view this game as a game that would tell us where we are, and nobody likes where we are.”
The Cowboys are averaging 327 offensive yards per game, a mediocre 17th in the league. They do rank 6th in total points, but four of Dallas’s 13 total touchdowns- or 30 percent- have come from the defense and special teams. Of the offense’s 52 possessions thus far, only 19 have penetrated the red zone… and just seven have resulted in six points.
They never reached the red zone at all at Levi’s Stadium in their 42-10 loss, but Jones doesn’t believe the sky is falling.
“We should recognize that we had a very bad outing, and San Francisco had a very good outing,” he said. “We should recognize that and call it what it is and not mislead ourselves. But as far as sitting here and saying we should completely change out the towels here, that’s not even in the cards. And it’s really ridiculous.”
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The Cowboys will look to get themselves back on track against the 2-2 Los Angeles Chargers, who are coming off a bye week and putting up top-ten numbers in yards per game and points per game under Kellen Moore, the offensive coordinator who Dallas parted ways with in order to hand the reins to McCarthy.
What once looked like a game the Cowboys should win handily now feels like one they absolutely must win- and arguably, with authority- even if for purely psychological reasons. If they go into their own bye week swimming in the doubts and bad juju that are swirling now, keeping their heads above water the rest of the way could prove very difficult.
The Cowboys, clearly, are not the team everyone thought they were.
The question now, though, as Jones himself put it repeatedly on Tuesday: are they capable of becoming that team?
Jones says yes, but he, like the rest of us, are still waiting to see it.
“Sure, we all had aspirations of going through this thing and being dominant, really being dominant,” he concluded. “But the facts are that every game for us is going to be a challenge.”
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