Given everything that happened — and didn’t happen, in terms of upgrades — this offseason, it wasn’t outrageous to think the Dallas Cowboys would struggle this season. A disappointing season was never out of the realm of possibility, but the way the Cowboys have gone about their way to a 3-6 record is astonishing.
“Honestly, to be minus-10 (turnover margin) and to have three wins?” Cowboys offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer said. “I mean, minus-10 is a really bad number. We know that. If it doesn’t get better, it’s going to be hard to win a lot of games moving forward, so, it has to.”
The Cowboys are 31st in rushing offense, and recent dialogue from coaches has been about feeling encouraged by the improvements in running the ball. The scary part is — because of how low the bar has been this season — they have a point. The Cowboys averaged 117 rushing yards per game the last two weeks. Even though that’s middle of the pack during that span, it’s markedly better than what they’ve been for most of the season.
There are plenty of other stats one could rattle off to explain the Cowboys’ fall to one of the worst teams in the league. They own the NFL’s second-worst red zone offense and second-worst run defense. They are 0-4 at home this season — 0-5 in their last five home games including last season’s playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers. The losing skid immediately followed after Dallas boasted a 16-game home winning streak.
Aside from the struggles at home, a lot of the Cowboys’ weaknesses this season were incredibly predictable. Maybe it wasn’t thought that they would be this bad, but it was clear where this team was lacking.
The turnovers category, though, is stunning.
“We added more time in the team fundamentals back to the Wednesday practice three or four weeks back,” coach Mike McCarthy said. “I just believe in bearing down and staying after it. That’s the only thing I know how to do, and it’ll show up. Our history here will speak to it. We’ve been very good in the area of turnover ratio. I mean, minus-10 makes me sick. It actually does. That’s not what I believe in. I think my track record speaks to that. All I know how to do is keep working.”
There is truth to that.
McCarthy often likes to throw out the 2020 season, his first in Dallas, which was mired by COVID-19 and a season-ending injury to Dak Prescott in Week 5, so let’s set that aside for a moment. From 2021 through 2023, the Cowboys were plus-34 in the turnover margin. That is, by far, the best in the NFL during those three seasons. The second-best turnover ratio was the San Francisco 49ers’ at plus-19. Even if you throw the 2020 season into the mix, the Cowboys still come out tops in the league at plus-31 from 2020 through 2023.
This season, their minus-10 is third worst, just slightly better than the Tennessee Titans’ (minus-11) and the Las Vegas Raiders’ (minus-14).
In his 12 full seasons as coach in Green Bay (2006-2017), McCarthy’s Packers were plus-97, second only to the New England Patriots during that span. The Patriots were an astonishing plus-147, thanks to having Tom Brady on offense and Bill Belichick leading the defense. Even though it’s easy to point to Dan Quinn’s turnover-hungry defenses playing a role in Dallas for three seasons — and they certainly did, leading the NFL from 2021 through 2023 with 93 forced turnovers — there’s an element of McCarthy’s fingerprint that has been on this as well. The Cowboys offense had just 59 turnovers in that three-year span, which tied for sixth best in the NFL.
This year, the Cowboys have turned the ball over 18 times, second worst in the league. They have forced eight turnovers — only better than four teams.
The offensive side of this equation has a chance of getting out of hand without Prescott so it’s important to hammer down the fact this was a disaster even when QB1 was healthy. Prescott was part of the turnover problem. Last season, when Prescott was MVP runner-up, he threw eight interceptions in 17 games. This year, Prescott threw eight interceptions in the first eight games, before his season ended prematurely. Yes, the lack of a running game, shoddy offensive line, absence of receiving options behind CeeDee Lamb and slow chemistry even with Lamb all played a role in Prescott’s struggles. Still, he’d be the first to acknowledge he didn’t take care of the ball well enough.
Then, there are the fumbles. The loss Sunday had a little bit of everything from the fumble buffet table:
• An Ezekiel Elliott red zone fumble.
• A Jake Ferguson midfield fumble.
• A Cooper Rush lost ball on a strip-sack.
• An unexplainable doozy when Rush fumbled a shotgun snap.
⚠️ NSFW⚠️
STRIP SACK @Bryce55H! pic.twitter.com/pfLc794vdJ
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) November 10, 2024
The Cowboys have lost eight fumbles, which is second worst behind Vegas’ nine.
Defensively, there might be more plausible explanations. Mike Zimmer’s defensive system was bound to create fewer turnovers than Quinn’s defenses did. … That was before the top four defensive ends missed extended time and ball-hawking cornerback DaRon Bland has yet to play this season. Mix all of that together and you get where the Cowboys are.
When cornerback Trevon Diggs was asked a few weeks ago about the lack of turnovers created by a defense that once feasted on them, he pointed to the scheme.
“Our defensive scheme now doesn’t really allow us to get a lot of turnovers,” Diggs said. “It’s more so just playing good football. Playing 11-man football.”
In Zimmer’s eight years as a head coach for the Minnesota Vikings, they were top five in turnover margin and the 11th-best defense in forcing turnovers.
There’s certainly an element of complementary football at play, too. When the offense struggles to take care of the ball — therefore not scoring as much — the defense is forced to play from behind. That decreases pass-rush opportunities to get after the quarterback and for the secondary to find the ball. It also can’t be ignored that both units have fallen flat on their face this season and have not held up their end of the bargain.
Entering the season, the Cowboys were considered to be a decent football team with the ceiling of a good football team. They were never considered to be good enough to overcome the opponent and themselves nearly every week. That’s why, as much as the turnover margin might be surprising, the 3-6 record shouldn’t be a surprise when they’ve been so bad at taking care of the ball and taking it away.
(Photo of Ezekiel Elliott: Tim Heitman / Imagn Images)
