The Dallas Cowboys are nearing the quarter pole of the 2024 season. Technically, it will be exactly one-fourth of the way after the end of the first quarter of next Sunday’s game.
They have navigated the first four games with a 2-2 record.
A two-game losing streak, to New Orleans and Baltimore, sandwiched between wins over Cleveland and the Giants.
A dark road lies ahead for the Cowboys when you look at their upcoming schedule.
They travel to Pittsburgh, which begins today’s play with a 3-0 record. Dallas then comes back home to face the Lions, who are 2-1 going into tomorrow night’s game against Seattle.
You can bet that Detroit has had their return to AT&T Stadium circled on their calendar since the schedule was released back in May.
The Cowboys were extremely fortunate to win the last meeting back in December. The Lions are still seething over it and will be motivated to play.
The hard fact is that Dallas could very well be 2-4 going into their bye in the seventh week.
The five games that follow aren’t shaping up to be cakewalks either. Dallas hits the road for back-to-back weeks in San Francisco and Atlanta.
They will then host the Eagles and Houston before heading east to face the surprisingly good Commanders and their old defensive coordinator, Dan Quinn.
How the Cowboys navigate this stretch of the season will determine their postseason fate. They could be 7-4 going into their Thanksgiving Day game against the Giants in late November.
They could also just as easily be 4-7, or worse, by then and already looking ahead to 2025.
But for now, let’s briefly review the first quarter of the 2024 season.
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
Dallas got off to a great start with a 16-point win against the Browns. But 21 of their 33 points in that game came off of special teams.
Brandon Aubrey had four field goals and three extra points. KaVontae Turpin added six points on a 60-yard punt return.
The offense only put 12 points on the board with a Dak Prescott touchdown pass and a three-yard scoring run by Ezekiel Elliott.
Prescott would finish with 179 yards passing and the Cowboys as a team had 101 rushing yards. The defense looked very much like the defense of 2023.
After one game, it was all good in Dallas.
Then came the bad.
Both the Saints and Ravens rolled into AT&T Stadium and curb-stomped the Cowboys. Yes, Prescott put on an amazing show in the fourth quarter of the loss to Baltimore to make it close.
But those were two shocking home losses where the defense struggled for eight quarters and the offense did likewise for seven quarters.
Suddenly, it was all unbelievably bad in Dallas and Thursday brought the ugly.
Thursday night’s win over the Giants was a win, but an ugly one. The Cowboys’ offense got off to a better start, at least.
The defense managed to keep an opponent out of the endzone for the first time all season.
But a five-point win over the Giants, who still had two late possessions to try to win the game, is not the kind of win you use to show that you’re among the league’s best.
By The Numbers
Prescott is the first quarterback in the NFL this year to crack 1,000 yards passing with 1,072 yards. He has thrown six touchdowns against two interceptions.
The downside is that the passing game is all the Cowboys have going on offense.
Rico Dowdle is the team’s leading rusher with 134 yards, just 33.5 yards per game. The entire team is averaging just 75 yards a game on the ground.
CeeDee Lamb is averaging 79 yards a game and is third in the league with 316 receiving yards.
On defense, though, the Cowboys are in disarray.
They have surrendered the most points in the league at 104. There are a couple of teams that might surpass that total later today.
However, that’s still seven more points than Dallas has put on the positive side of the board. Teams in the red in scoring differential rarely go far in the postseason.
That’s a trend that needs to be reversed.
That will be a tall ask, especially if Micah Parsons misses more than two weeks with a high ankle sprain. Not to mention DeMarcus Lawrence being out for several weeks and if the Cowboys’ banged-up secondary can’t get healthy soon either.
Looking Ahead
A 2-2 record and no worse than a game out of first in the NFC East is certainly no reason to hit the panic button. It’s a lot better than being 1-3 and dead last as they would have been with a Thursday night loss.
They could also find themselves tied for first with Washington and Philadelphia with a little help from Arizona and Tampa Bay later today.
But the offense needs to put touchdowns on the board early and often. The defense needs to keep their future opponents out of the endzone more frequently, just as they did with the Giants.
If both units can keep getting consistently better, they have a chance.
If they don’t? Well, we’re only 340 days away from the opening kickoff of the 2025 season.