As if this is to anyone’s surprise, the Dallas Cowboys still have a glaring issue that has been a huge problem for the last three seasons. They can’t stop beating themselves with penalties. It’s getting so hard to watch.
The first half of last night’s game was just a joke. The refs have something to do with this, as penalties have been bad in every game in 2024, but Dallas is giving them every reason to throw out those yellow markers of doom.
The Cowboys and Giants were whistled for a combined 12 infractions in the first half, but flags hit the field more often than that.
The officials picked up a couple of flags and had some instances of offsetting penalties, creating many stoppages throughout the first half.
It felt like it took forever to finish.
The Dallas Cowboys lack discipline
Of the 15 penalties, the Cowboys found themselves getting called for 11 of them, costing them 89 yards.
How has this problem not gotten fixed after so many years under Mike McCarthy?
A season ago, the Cowboys had the THIRD most in football. They committed 115 penalties, costing them like a billion yards.
Every time we see the Cowboys offense or defense make a big play, I always look at the bottom-middle of the screen to see if the yellow flag indicator on the box score is coming.
They had a big play to get them inside the 20 early in the second half. Then they had to settle for three because of back-to-back holding calls.
Trevon Diggs also had a nice interception on Daniel Jones that got called back because Carl Lawson was offsides.
This team has enough to work on and deal with, like the injuries to Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawerence. They should not need to clean up things that should have been fixed years ago.
This has been an ongoing issue under Mike McCarthy. So, either he just thinks they can win despite them, or these players have a serious problem.
It doesn’t help that the offensive line is very young. Tyler Guyton is a raw young talent, but he was not good last night. He’s probably going to have to pay a fine for what he said after the game.
As he walked into the tunnel following the 20-15 win over the New York Giants, he said, “The NFL needs better refs, please!”
It was a hard game to watch, but it doesn’t matter who is out there; penalty flags have been flying like crazy this season.
A win is a win
Look, this team clearly has a lot to work on, but Friday morning feels considerably better with the Cowboys record sitting at 2-2 instead of 1-3.
We might have been writing a post about Mike McCarthy being the first head coach that Jerry Jones fired in-season since Wade Phillips.
They have a mini-bye week before they play the Steelers on Sunday Night Football at the end of next week, and the way the Cowboys defense is playing, Justin Fields could absolutely run all over them.
Even more so if the two best defenders on the Cowboys line are out.
The Cowboys needed this win, regardless of how it looked, but man did it come with a cost.
This team is already thin enough everywhere that the last thing they need is for two key defenders to miss extended time.
It sounds like all is well right now, that Lawrence and Parsons will be fine, but I’d think twice about pushing Micah to play against the Steelers, even with three extra days off. He is far too important to the Cowboys success to risk too early in the season.
This football team has so much to work on, but 2-2 is a lot better than 1-3, I will tell you that.
Let’s hope they can get some rest before going on the road again to play against another tough defense in the Steelers. They will need it.