The struggles continued for the Dallas Cowboys today as they fell on the road 38-31 to the Seattle Seahawks today. The loss drops them to 1-2 on the year, with last week’s miraculous comeback the only thing preventing Mike McCarthy from being winless as head coach.
Dak Prescott threw for 472 yards and three touchdowns but also had two interceptions and a lost fumble. He got no help from the running game today; Ezekiel Elliott was almost completely shut down with only 34 rushing yards on 14 carries. Zeke did have one short-yardage touchdown but was otherwise a non-factor.
The Cowboys had a series of bad plays early which set an ugly tone. Tony Pollard muffed a kickoff that put Dallas on their own 1-yard line and then Elliott slipped in the endzone to cause a safety. They also had two missed extra points from Greg Zuerlein today, though one of those was blocked.
While the misfires and mistakes never allowed today’s game to get as out of hand as last week’s, Seattle is a better team than the Falcons and did enough to win. The early Dallas mistakes allowed Wilson to put up points early and he finished the day with five touchdown passes and 315 yrds.
Wilson stayed effective despite solid pressure from the Cowboys’ defense, highlighted by three sacks from Aldon Smith. But there were multiple coverage breakdowns which made Dallas’ secondary look fairly inept, and particularly at safety.
With Jamal Adams playing for the other team, and Seattle being where Earl Thomas once lived, it certainly made the poor safety play stand out.
Still, despite it all, the Cowboys were marching the field on the final drive with a chance to tie. Prescott managed to get away from a near sack in the final seconds and lobbed a pass to the endzone that was picked off. Dallas may have been able to run one more play without that turnover, but it would have been a similar jump-ball scenario at that point.
If they can clean up the sloppy stuff and stop putting themselves in holes, this Cowboys team is clearly good enough to compete with most teams. Some of what they’ve done this year is actually impressive given all their injuries.
But nobody is giving them a medical exemption into the playoffs at the end of the year. Dallas has to figure some things out quickly and may need to make some phone calls to certain free agents if they want improvement.
Other Notes
- An unlikely standout today was WR Cedrick Wilson, who scored twice and had five catches for 107 yards. Both of his scores came off nice runs after the catch.
- Michael Gallup was the other star receiver today with six catches for 138 yards and a TD of his own. Amari Cooper and CeeDee Lamb were both active as well but their numbers were a bit behind Gallup and Wilson.
- Zack Martin played the second half at right tackle after Terence Steele was benched for poor performance. Joe Looney slid to guard and Tyler Biadasz came in at center. While Martin performed well, we’re happy that one or both of Tyron Smith and La’el Collins should be back next week.
- Dak Prescott’s first-half interception was his first of 2020 and the first he’s thrown since the Thanksgiving game last season.
- Despite their early-season woes, Dallas remains tied for first place in the atrocious NFC East. Washington also lost today to drop to 1-2, the Giants are 0-3, and the Eagles tied with the Bengals to go to 0-2-1 on the year.
- The Cowboys return home next week to host the 2-1 Cleveland Browns, who are coming off a victory over the Football Team today.
