Unexpected issues paired with Cowboys lack of offseason activity has led to rocky 3-3 start


In no way, shape, or form does it feel like the 2024 Dallas Cowboys are sitting at 3-3 on the season, on their bye week, and tied in the win column with the Philadelphia Eagles. The way they have gotten here has been much more about historic low points than anything close to the regular-season highs that became the standard under Mike McCarthy. It’s a team that was stagnant in the offseason leading into McCarthy’s contract season and is showing major signs of regression in just about every facet of the game.

The head coach that asked when it became easy to win 12 regular season games before this season began was just responsible for the worst Cowboys loss of the Jerry Jones era. McCarthy became the first head coach in Dallas to lose his first three home games of the season since Wade Phillips in 2010 (who was fired after a midseason loss to McCarthy’s Packers), somehow giving the home AT&T Stadium crowd that included Jones celebrating his birthday the team’s worst performance of the season. Things already looked grim in a 44-19 loss to the Saints and 28-25 loss to the Ravens that was hardly as close as that score would indicate, but what the Lions did to the Cowboys is hard to even compare to those back-to-back losses from earlier in the year. They willingly lined up offensive tackles as receivers more than once to simply have fun at the Cowboys’ expense and earn their biggest win by point differential since 2011. To win 12 games now, these Cowboys would have to win nine of their remaining 11 games, five of which are against playoff teams from a season ago starting with a San Francisco 49ers squad that’s beaten the Cowboys three straight times by an average margin of over two touchdowns. The Cowboys’ week eight game on Sunday Night Football will be one of four remaining opportunities for them to play on primetime, the thought of which any Cowboys fan can only shutter at right now. Even the team’s bye week began with more embarrassment thanks to Jones threatening to have local Dallas radio hosts fired over their line of questioning about the 47-9 debacle at the hands of the Lions. It hasn’t gotten any better as former Hall of Fame players on both sides of the ball are also calling out the problems they see with the Cowboys publicly, like Troy Aikman’s thoughts on the route running seen from the receivers or DeMarcus Ware noting a lack of effort on defense. The early going of this season is hardly the first time the Cowboys have been accused of being late to react to trends around the league or not using all avenues of player acquisition to field the best roster possible. A big part of why this year feels so much worse though is some of the more unexpected issues that have come up for a team with few options at this point to fix them. If being accused of being slow is nothing new, doubling down on this way of business by rendering a full season nothing more than an 18 week evaluation of what the Cowboys have in place around franchise players Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb is an entire new low. This team feels pinned to the mat and relatively incapable of getting up in time to save the season.

The Cowboys front office knows that roster attrition and players departing in free agency or retiring will come up again at the end of what already feels like a lost season, and with it an entirely new set of on-field problems will arise - especially if the losses continue to pile up and the expected mass exodus of coaches leaving The Star occurs shortly after. McCarthy is far from the only coach at the end of his contract in Dallas, with several other position coaches and staffers also working for their job. The “competitive nature” of this situation has become nothing more than fodder for dysfunction after just six games.

What are some of the things the Cowboys were counting on this season that have not come true yet? Here are five of them that go a long way in explaining how the reigning NFC East champions have so much work to do even reaching the top of their division again this season.