The Dallas Cowboys Are Broken, and the Long-Term Solution Is Obvious
We've crossed the halfway point of the 2024 NFL regular season, and the end can't come quickly enough for the Dallas Cowboys.
"America's Team" predictably fell to 3-6 on the year Sunday with an embarrassing 34-6 blowout loss to the rival Philadelphia Eagles in front of their home crowd in Arlington. It wasn't the first soul-crushing loss of the season for the Cowboys, and it sure looks like it won't be the last.
Starting quarterback Dak Prescott missed the game with a hamstring injury that forced him out of the previous week's loss to the Atlanta Falcons, and could end up requiring season-ending surgery for the highest-paid player in NFL history.
Sunday's outing was the kind Cowboys fans will wish they could forget, but unfortunately, the NFL record books won't allow it:
It's easy to point to Prescott's injury as the primary reason for the loss, but his presence sure didn't help the Cowboys avoid the same fate in those other four home games, including an absolute drubbing at the hands of the Detroit Lions that was over so early, Prescott spent the fourth quarter on the bench.
Micah Parsons was back from his lengthy injury absence, and while he made his share of impact plays, it wasn't nearly enough to make up for the persistent ineptitude the Cowboys displayed yet again on both sides of the ball.
So, how can the Cowboys fix this thing?
Well, for this year, they can't. It sure looks like Prescott is going to land on season-ending injured reserve, having surgery with an eye on getting fully healthy for the 2025 season. Considering what we saw from Cooper Rush and Trey Lance in his stead Sunday, and the fact that the trade deadline has passed, this is probably how most Cowboys games are gonna go the rest of the way in 2024.
Dallas Cowboys fans are tired of the on-field product Jerry Jones has been giving them for the last three decades.
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But if the franchise is serious about righting the ship and creating long-term success, it has to start at the top, and that means the Cowboys have to find a real general manager.
Clearly the awful product in front of him isn't enough on its own to convince Jerry Jones to hand over the personnel and roster-building decisions to someone else, so it'll take some convincing from anyone who might have his ear. He clearly likes to shop for his own groceries, but the Sunday meals that result from his choices have inspired more Pepto Bismol purchases than Michelin stars.
It was Jones who hand-picked Mike McCarthy as the head coach that could finally get this generation of his franchise over the hump and win a championship. That has been a colossal failure, as McCarthy's bland, outdated scheme and lackluster game-day management skills have been painfully evident.
Even so, Jones remains adamant that he won't make a coaching change:
It was also Jones who ignored the team's desperate need for an improvement at running back this offseason, and waited until the echo of the 11th hour to sign Prescott and star wide receiver CeeDee Lamb to long-term contract extensions.
The team's absent ground game has left the offense completely unbalanced and unthreatening, while the delay in extending the team's two best offensive players cost him millions in the long run, and likely created an uneasy feeling throughout the locker room with regards to the team's long-term future and willingness to invest in their top talent.
To his credit, Jones did appear to take some accountability for the team's on-field failures as it relates to his personnel decisions following Sunday's loss:
The league is full of talented personnel executives who excel at evaluating talent, and are well-versed in how to navigate the current landscape of the modern league in every area of roster construction. It's long past time for Jones, who just turned 82 years old in October, to offer one of those people that opportunity to rebuild his beloved franchise into the championship organization that it once was.
Jones needs a football person to take control of those decisions if he truly wants to give his massive fan base a healthy organization that can actually achieve long-term stability and success, and finally deliver the team's first Lombardi Trophy since Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" won Best Album at the Grammys.
If he doesn't, he'll have no one to blame but himself if the Cowboys continue to toil somewhere between predictable disappointment, constant mediocrity, or the downright unwatchable show we saw yet again on Sunday.
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