Dak Prescott did not finish Sunday's 27-21 Cowboys defeat to the Atlanta Falcons. This is not why his team lost. Prescott's departure merely hastened a narrative that began unfolding sometime between Jerry Jones' decision to hire Mike McCarthy as head coach and his decision to let the embattled play caller sweat through a lame duck season this fall.
It accelerated when Jones mentioned he'd go "all in" this offseason before spending the first week of free agency watching his free agent starters depart. It added more fuel around the time Jones' inability to lock down his homegrown stars in a timely fashion led to a contract standoff with Prescott that eventually left Dallas to pay out the most guaranteed money in NFL history. But the ending hinted at despite a 3-2 finish has become a full on spoiler.
The 2024 Dallas Cowboys are cooked. Sunday marked a third straight loss against an NFC contender, dropping Dallas to 3-5 with a game against the surging Philadelphia Eagles waiting in Week 10. Whatever goodwill came with more than 450 yards of offense against the Pittsburgh Steelers has been fully vacated.
The Cowboys are bad. Their only hope of getting better relies on both DaRon Bland and Micah Parsons coming back and creating an elite defense around them. This defense, right here: Adding two All-Pros to the mix will certainly help, but.
.. hooooo buddy, they'll need to be nearly superhuman to give this team what it needs.
Kirk Cousins threw three touchdown passes Sunday. One was .
