ARLINGTON, Texas — In the first minute that cornerback Trevon Diggs addressed the media following the Dallas Cowboys’ 44-19 loss to the New Orleans Saints, he answered three questions. In that span, Diggs said “unacceptable” four times.
“It was just unacceptable,” Diggs said. “I’m not going to make no excuses but it’s unacceptable. We didn’t come to play today.”
It’s the perfect assessment of the abomination that took place at AT&T Stadium, where the Cowboys’ performance mirrored their playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers a lot more than the 16-game regular-season home winning streak they were riding coming into Sunday.
After the game, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones heaped a lot of credit on the Saints. Players talked about being blindsided by this kind of performance. Linebacker Eric Kendricks said it was “a good piece of humble pie, for sure.” Multiple players vowed that this effort would not be repeated, and that if it had to happen, it’s good that it occurred this early in the season. The mistakes will be corrected.
Those are all valid points.
The Saints do deserve credit for winning the game. Evaluating the Saints’ Week 1 blowout win was tough because of how bad the Carolina Panthers are but the Saints, despite missing the playoffs, were 9-8 last year. Alvin Kamara (four touchdowns) is a great player and Derek Carr — who posted a whopping 99.4 QBR (out of max 100) — is a good quarterback. It is better to lose a game in September than it is in December or January.
The “unacceptable” remark isn’t so much that the Cowboys lost but more so how they lost.
No matter the month, the Saints should never beat the Cowboys in that fashion. Losing that way is not a talent issue. Most would argue that, on paper, the Cowboys’ roster grades out higher than the Saints’ roster. Even if one doesn’t buy that, the disparity is not that drastic.
It isn’t even necessarily a scheme issue, given Mike Zimmer’s longstanding success in the NFL as a defensive mind, although it’s hard to ignore the Cowboys’ problems against the Kyle Shanahan style of offense. It certainly isn’t a health issue, either. The Cowboys’ defense had every player on the roster available. Even if one factors in DaRon Bland’s absence, his presence wouldn’t change what ailed the Cowboys on Sunday.
As hard as it was to assess the Saints in Week 1 because of their opponent, a similar challenge stands with assessing the Cowboys after Week 2.
The defense was the story in the Cowboys’ Week 1 win over the Cleveland Browns, for all of the right reasons. The Browns had offensive line and running back injuries and a quarterback in Deshaun Watson trying to regain his 2020 form. Still, Zimmer’s unit dominated at every level, stifling the run, pressuring the quarterback and defending the pass.
Facing a true starting running back and a competent starting quarterback against the Saints produced different results. That’s where Diggs’ other comment comes in. Not only was the defense’s performance unacceptable, Diggs said it felt like they “didn’t come to play.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t concerned about the defense, at all,” Jones said. “We all want to play better on defense than we played out there today. We’ve got some players out there that can make a better account than you saw out there today. So, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
The work is going to have to come from everywhere. Zimmer’s primary task when he took over as defensive coordinator was to patch up the run defense. While Kamara is a great player, the Cowboys hardly made him earn his production. Kamara conveniently bounced outside for large gains and routinely found holes to get skinny through the inside.
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If the Cowboys’ run defense doesn’t improve, things have the potential to get dire. The strength of the Cowboys’ defense is their pass rush. If Micah Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence and company can’t pin their ears back and rush the passer, it takes away an important dimension. Diggs, Jourdan Lewis and Bland (when he returns) feed off the pass rush to create turnovers.
The Cowboys won’t have to wait long for their shot at redemption. Next week, the desperate Baltimore Ravens (0-2) will march into AT&T Stadium, spearheaded by Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry and a lethal rushing attack.
“When it’s like this, we’ve got to feel this for the next 24 hours or so,” Kendricks said. “You look around the locker room, you can sense it. Everyone’s disappointed. We didn’t want that, especially with our home opener. The NFL will humble you like that. … We’ve got to make a stand. We’ve got to come back to work tomorrow — obviously, let it hurt for a little bit, I think that’s a good thing — and then put it in our rearview and work toward the next.”
(Photo: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)
