The homefield advantage has been lost.
The defensive tenacity has vanished.
The offensive potency has been absent.
And when Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones turned 82 years old on Sunday, his birthday became just another milestone marking 27 straight seasons of football calendars turned and burned. Both in the near term — an embarrassing 47-9 home defeat to the Detroit Lions — and in the long term, via a reminder that Jones’ Cowboys haven’t won anything of Super Bowl consequence since he was in his early 50s and the only pads Dak Prescott was wearing were diapers.
Let that be your frame of reference as these Cowboys head into their bye week. Injury-riddled on defense, lacking an identity on offense. Led by a head coach who is on the clock, bogged down at 3-3 and looking at the distant tail lights of the NFC’s most competent teams.
The NFC East? The Washington Commanders (4-2) look better.
The entire NFC North, from first to last, is probably better.
The NFC South’s Atlanta Falcons (4-2)? Probably better. Even the San Francisco 49ers — also sitting at 3-3 like the Cowboys and with their own brand of problems — are miles ahead.
As of Sunday, the Cowboys have lost four straight at AT&T Stadium, including blowout losses to the Lions, New Orleans Saints in Week 2 and the Green Bay Packers in last season’s playoff dud. The offensive line is a mess. The offensive scheme is imbalanced and the defensive coordinator, Mike Zimmer, looks lost trying to fill the shoes of his predecessor, Dan Quinn. Even AT&T Stadium’s social media department is having some seriously cringeworthy moments, at one point posting a photo of the home crowd on X along with an attendance figure Sunday, but blurring out the score of the game because it was so out of hand. That, of course, drew the attention of the Lions’ social media account, who then put it on blast.
In the middle of it all, Jones is not only getting older, but also seeming out of touch, with a curiously undefined plan of action that seems chained to the belief that it will simply get better as it goes longer. It might … just enough to get Dallas pointed toward the postseason and make head coach Mike McCarthy’s expiring contract the only thing anyone really talks about down the stretch.
After the loss Sunday, Jones told reporters he didn’t have a lot of answers, other than a hope that the bye week offers a chance for change.
“This was very concerning and it was very humbling … We’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m glad we’ve got this bye week coming up here,” Jones said. “It will give everybody an opportunity to get out and actually practice what it is that takes you to be more successful in a game like this. This was a shocker. I thought we would do a lot of things better in that football game and I think we can. We just didn’t do them out there today. I don’t have a lot of answers [to] ‘what are you going to do about it’ — we’re going to go to work. We’re going to use the young guys we’ve got out there, the reps they’re getting, the experience they’re getting, we’re going to try to make that help us get into position to win some ballgames.”
Here’s the thing about that bye week: The schedule is a buzzsaw coming out of it.
Thus far, the Cowboys’ three wins came at the expense of a Cleveland Browns franchise that is 1-5 and spiraling, the 2-4 New York Giants and a 4-2 Pittsburgh Steelers team that is still learning how to score with Justin Fields at quarterback. Coming out of the bye? In Weeks 8-12, they get a 49ers team that is getting healthier, a Falcons team that is finally settling in on offense with Kirk Cousins, an Eagles team that is getting healthier, a Houston Texans team that is one of the best in the NFL (and could have Nico Collins back) and a Commanders franchise that is feisty and gaining more confidence by the week.
Conversely, there’s no telling when the Cowboys will have edge rushers Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence back in that stretch, or what cornerback DaRon Bland will look like coming back from a stress fracture in his foot. Nor is there a promise on the horizon that the wideouts are going to suddenly become more than CeeDee Lamb and a rotating cast of extras. The backfield? Dallas needs to learn how to establish leads to function with a running game, and it certainly hasn’t figured out a way to do that.
There’s a real possibility that Dallas could be fighting for its season by late November. And that’s all going to be in the spotlight from one week to the next, with the big question of whether or not Jerry is going to shake up his coaching staff by firing McCarthy. That’s precisely what anyone could have predicted in July, when McCarthy entered the season in the final year of his contract. Even then, this track seemed inevitable regardless of the record. If the Cowboys were hitting on all cylinders, the question would be what McCarthy needed to do to get a contract extension after the season. If the Cowboys were faltering, the question would be whether McCarthy would be dismissed in a last-ditch effort to save the season.
This is what Jerry Jones created for himself. So he shouldn’t have been surprised when after his worst home loss in his 34 years of ownership, he was asked if he was considering a coaching change.
“I’m not considering that,” Jones told reporters, bristling at the suggestion. “Just so you’re clear, I’m not considering that.”
Well, he better get used to answering that question because this is the team he built, led by the players he extended and the head coach he didn’t. Married together, they’re a mediocre mess and heading into a weeklong break that might be the last pause to patch some of the cracks.
Happy 82nd, Jerry. This is the gift you gave yourself.
