The Dallas Cowboys are likely going to be thinking about that one for a while. Sunday’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens was as inconsequential as a game can get in terms of tiebreaker worth. Dallas lost to an AFC team and one that isn’t even a common opponent with their division rivals. If you had ranked games before the season by which would be the “best” to lose then this would have been number one for those reasons.
But while it isn’t a tiebreaker or measurable variable, the narrative matters. This was an opportunity for the Cowboys to prove that they could hang (which they did, to be clear) and maybe even beat (which they didn’t, also to be clear) one of the better teams in the NFL. It was the proverbial measuring stick game and the Cowboys did not measure up.
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That is reflected in our stock report following the loss to say the least.
Stock Down: Brian Schottenheimer
You can argue about different parts of the Cowboys letting them down on Sunday and have a fair point. The offense did not fully deliver, the defense certainly got beat in bad moments, and special teams were a disaster.
But the biggest stock down here has to be Brian Schottenheimer. He is both the head coach who oversees the entire operation and the offensive play-caller who got way too cute for much of this game and handicapped things at the end.
Schottenheimer’s hiring is now being called into question and it is hard to push back on any of those sorts of conversations. He was the most direct reason for the Cowboys’ loss on Sunday and directly inhibited the team’s chances of winning. Your head coach has to be your advantage in games and on Sunday he was the opposite.
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Brandon Aubrey had a field goal attempt blocked which was obviously unfortunate, especially given that the Cowboys lost the game by three points. But that isn’t why he’s here.
Aubrey had multiple kickoffs that went out of bounds and they became such an issue that the coaching staff didn’t trust him to keep the ball in bounds with seven seconds remaining. Aubrey booting it out of the endzone drew no time off of the clock and provided Baltimore with every second, literally, they needed to pull the win off.
This past offseason the Cowboys made Aubrey the highest-paid kicker in the NFL. Aubrey reached a level of non-trust before the calendar even turned to October. This cannot happen.
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I’m hesitant to place Ferguson here given that his fumble was debatable, in terms of whether or not he had full possession before it happened, and that he had a critical touchdown during Dallas’ rally.
But he had what the game defined to be as a fumble, and the narrative that he has a fumbling issue is only going to persist. His place is earned, unfortunately.
Conversations around Schoonmaker are never pleasant as most Cowboys fans have felt like he has under-delivered on his second-round draft status. He is not an offensive weapon for this team which is disappointing. But you can not be an offensive weapon and still be helpful. At the very least you can not be an offensive weapon and not cost your team.
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This was not the case for Schoonmaker on Sunday. His false start penalty was one of the bigger butterfly effect moments from the game as it dramatically changed what Dallas was able to do as they were trying to win the game. Those mistakes add up.
By extension, you could lump Dak Prescott in here too as he is the one playing quarterback, but consider that Ryan Flournoy had eight total targets in this game. He had two receptions.
The Cowboys paid Flournoy, not CeeDee Lamb or George Pickens money to be sure, but still. We have all raved about him as one of the better WR3s in the NFL. He has to do more with that many targets.
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At a certain point enough is enough. It isn’t 100% Steele’s fault. We have all known for a while that he is among the weakest points on the team overall, but the Cowboys were painted into a bit of a corner this past offseason.
They had questions about Tyler Guyton, more on him in a moment, and couldn’t quite trust him. As a result they weren’t able to also move on from Steele. They had to hedge themselves however they could.
Unfortunately, Steele hasn’t seen the improvement this year that the other player we are talking about has. Enough definitely feels like enough. Sunday did not go well.
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What a phenomenal performance. Consider that the Cowboys had an answer in this game for Derrick Henry. Think about how absurd that is.
Now obviously they didn’t fully neutralize Henry, but they took care of him when the moments mattered the most. Jaishawn Barham helped do that. If there is one bright light to shine through Sunday’s darkness it is that the Cowboys really do appear to have something special in Barham.
Stock Up: Tyler Guyton
NextGenStats counted 44 total pass snaps that Tyler Guyton was charged to protect Dak Prescott on, and he did so on 40 of them. Literally. Guyton allowed, as NGS evaluated, just four pressures in this game, all of them to Trey Hendrickson.
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He has really found himself.
Stock Up: CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens
Dak Prescott had 25 completions in this game. 14 of them went to CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens. The reason this matters is that Prescott was 14 of 19 when targeting these two specifically. He was 11 of 21 when targeting everyone else.
Maybe throw it to Lamb and Pickens more? Just an idea!
Obviously there is some jest in that, but the point is that Lamb and Pickens are proving week in and week out that they are very much worth the hype around them. There is an argument to spreading the wealth, so to speak, but it is clear that this is where the money is made for this team.
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Barham was the star on defense, but this was one of Quinnen Williams’ better games with the Cowboys. It was particularly great to see after the first two weeks of the season were hardly his best.
Williams was a serious force early on, but obviously everybody wore down as the game wore on. That is to be expected on some level, but at the very least Williams did his job to position other players like Barham to succeed.
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