Welcome to Cowboys Today, where we will bring the conversation — good or bad — surrounding the Dallas Cowboys to you throughout the week. Let’s jump right in to where things stand with this team through the first eight weeks of the season.
Even the most hardcore Dallas Cowboys fan can acknowledge that this season appears headed in a very bad direction. Yes, it’s an outstanding league of parity and unexpected things happen all the time. But let’s be honest, the upcoming schedule does the Cowboys no favors.
Week 9: at the Atlanta Falcons (5-3)
Week 10: vs. the Philadelphia Eagles (5-2)
Week 11: vs. the Houston Texans (6-2)
Week 12: at the Washington Commanders (6-2)
Dallas (3-4) probably needs to at least win two of those games to stay in playoff contention. Considering how the Cowboys have played in their last two games, one win out of those four seems like asking for a lot. They dropped six spots in The Athletic’s Power Rankings that came out Tuesday.
Dallas entered the season as one of the top four favorites to win the NFC, along with the San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles. The Cowboys are currently ninth, according to BetMGM.
| TEAM | LINES |
|---|---|
 Lions |
+300
|
 49ers |
+425
|
 Eagles |
+700
|
 Packers |
+700
|
 Vikings |
+900
|
 Commanders |
+1100
|
 Falcons |
+1400
|
 Bears |
+2500
|
 Cowboys |
+2500
|
 Rams |
+3300
|
 Cardinals |
+3500
|
I thought the Cowboys would be in the neighborhood of a 10-win season heading into Week 1. A tough schedule and not doing much in the offseason had me thinking they’d lose two or three more games than their last three 12-win seasons. Now, I think that the win total is closer to eight. Following those next four mentioned above, there is what looks like a much more winnable stretch against the New York Giants (2-6), Cincinnati Bengals (3-5) and Carolina Panthers (1-7). They’d probably have to win all three to get to eight wins. I was curious what others thought, so I posted this poll Monday.
How many games do you think the Dallas Cowboys will end up winning this season?
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) October 28, 2024
Front office trying to stay positive
During his weekly radio appearance Monday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said he hasn’t had any thoughts that maybe this team just isn’t good enough.
“This team is made up of a lot of the same players that won 12 games (each of) the last three seasons,” Jones said. “Right now we’re just going through adversity. We’ve had more than our share of injuries it feels like this year, especially on the defensive side of the ball. … I think we have really good football players. At times we’ve had spurts when we’ve played well and obviously at times we’re not playing well.”
What happened to the takeaways?
Not having those pressure players has made life much easier on opposing quarterbacks, which has contributed to Dallas not forcing near the amount of turnovers that it has in previous seasons. The Cowboys led the league in takeaways in 2021 and 2022. Those teams averaged two per game. This year’s group has five in seven games. And that has contributed to the Cowboys being 30th in the NFL in turnover differential at minus-eight.
“Personally, I’m very frustrated,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said. “If you want to be known for something as a football team, it’s taking care of the football and taking it away. I know my experience in the league would reflect that. To quote (Cowboys offensive coordinator) Brian Schottenheimer, Marty Schottenheimer is probably turning over in his grave right now watching us play, being minus-eight.
“It’s a focal point, but we can’t change yesterday. We can only work on today and improve moving forward. That’s our mindset. We know how to do it, we’ve done it. But they have to quit being words and exercises and practice drills. It needs to equate to Sundays. And that’s our focus.”
When duty calls
Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey missed practices last week while serving on jury duty in Fort Worth, Texas. It didn’t appear to have a negative impact on his play Sunday night. Aubrey made his only field goal attempt (29 yards) and all three extra point attempts in Dallas’ 30-24 loss at San Francisco.
Cowboys special teams coordinator John Fassel said Aubrey spent from 8 a.m. CT until 5:30 p.m. on jury duty last week. He then drove for about 90 minutes in traffic to get to The Star to kick at night. The case Aubrey is serving on is expected to wrap up this week.
“I just thought fate would have it that it would come down to a game-tying or a game-winner and we could point to the work he put in on his own as being a factor in that,” Fassel said. “But it didn’t work out that way. But I was proud of him for handling that week.”
PFF rankings … not great
Aside from Hunter Luepke being ranked fourth out of seven fullbacks in the NFL, the Cowboys don’t have a single offensive or defensive player ranked in the top 10 at their position group in Pro Football Focus’ player grades. The highest are Parsons at 13th among edge rushers and Tyler Smith at 14th among guards. The lowest ranked among their position group is Mazi Smith at 121 out of 121 interior defensive linemen. Dak Prescott is 27th among quarterbacks — and took a tumble in Jeff Howe’s latest QB stock report.
Brian Schottenheimer on Prescott’s six interceptions in the last three games: “You can’t dwell on them. You got to go play the game. We trust Dak. Dak is going to make way more good decisions than bad decisions. … We think and feel very strongly that Dak will get out of this, and we’ll get out of this. We have to do that to be as good as we can be.”
(Photo: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
