All losses sting, but the Dallas Cowboys’ Week 5 loss on Thursday night landed with a special kind of humiliation.
They let an 0-4 team with an undrafted quarterback walk into their building and leave with a win. For a franchise that has already seen its share of ugly nights, this one still stood out as one of the most embarrassing performances in recent memory.
That kind of mess usually calls for a response, and Brian Schottenheimer ought to send one. The cleanest way to do it would be to cut snaps, or even sit, a few players who have become part of the problem.
At the top of that list is DaRon Bland, and it’s not especially close. He was rough again in Week 5, allowing an 85.7% completion rate and a 116.1 passer rating when targeted while giving up six catches for 83 yards.
This wasn’t a one-off. Bland’s struggles have stretched across more than two seasons now, and Thursday brought another brutal reminder.
He slipped twice in coverage, leading to big plays - a 64-yard completion to Tez Johnson and a third-and-21 conversion to Emeka Egbuka that helped set up Tampa Bay scores. He also drew a penalty that helped extend another Buccaneers drive and later had a chance at a pick-six in the fourth quarter, only to drop it.
Even with all of that, a benching does not sound imminent. Jerry Jones still believes Bland can bounce back.
"He's got to continue to work to play at the level we expect of him. He's paid because of how he played in the past.
One of the things you can always bet on -- one of the surest things -- is when you've seen him do it in the past they can do it again, if they haven't had physical diminishment of their physical skills. And he hasn't," he said to 105.3 The Fan.
That reads less like a performance decision and more like a contract decision, and it’s a bad way to run a defense.
The Cowboys also need to make a call on Jake Ferguson. His fourth-quarter drop was the kind of play that ends games: Dak Prescott fired the ball, Ferguson let it go through his hands, it hit his face mask and wound up in the arms of a Buccaneers defender. It was flat-out inexcusable.
And it wasn’t the first issue with Ferguson. His blocking has been shaky, and he also lost a fumble in Week 3 in Baltimore Ravens territory in a game Dallas eventually dropped by three points.
That opens the door for more work for Brevyn Spann-Ford and maybe even Luke Schoonmaker, at least for a game.
Ryan Flournoy also gave the Cowboys another costly turnover. In the third quarter, with Dallas backed up in its own territory, Prescott hit him right in the hands.
The ball bounced up in the air several times before a Tampa Bay defender came down with it, and the Buccaneers turned that into a touchdown drive five plays later. Flournoy did post his best game of the season in terms of production, but he had been quiet over the first four weeks.
If the Cowboys want a different look, Camden Brown deserves a shot. At the very least, he should be active ahead of Jonathan Mingo.
KaVontae Turpin was responsible for one of Dallas’ three turnovers. On a kickoff return, he didn’t secure the ball well enough, Tampa Bay punched it loose, and the Buccaneers turned that mistake into a field goal. Turpin is a dangerous returner, but that doesn’t make the mistake acceptable.
Then there’s Dante Miller, who said after signing with the Cowboys that the team isn’t paying him for what he can do on the football field.
That’s fortunate, because he hasn’t done much of anything on the field. He has zero sacks and six pressures in five games, and on Thursday he was getting beat repeatedly in the run game because he couldn’t set the edge.
He’s averaging just 14.4 snaps per game, and his playing time has dropped in each of the last three games. It ought to drop to zero in Week 6.
In Other News...
Jerry Jones Gets Pulled Back Into A Familiar NFL Firestorm
Colin Kaepernick has brought Jerry Jones back into one of the NFLs most familiar old debates as he continues promoting his memoir, *A Perilous Fight*, which was released Sept. 15. During his book tour, Kaepernick criticized the Cowboys owner over Joness past opposition to Kaepernicks national anthem protests, a stance that once helped make the issue one of the leagues defining flashpoints.
For Dallas, it is another reminder that Jones can still end up at the center of league-wide conversation long after the original controversy faded from the daily news cycle. Jones had previously said the protests were disappointing and harmful to the NFLs popularity, and Kaepernicks public comments have now put that history back in view as the book tour keeps moving. [Read more 🡒]
Bucs Still Haunt Cowboys After Another Defensive Meltdown
The Cowboys latest meeting with Tampa Bay served as another reminder that the Buccaneers have become a particularly rough matchup when Dallas defense starts slipping. After giving up 17 unanswered points in the third quarter, the same issues that have dogged the run defense resurfaced, and the frustration around that side of the ball only grew louder in the aftermath.
Breiden Fehoko and Gerald McCoy both took aim at defensive coordinator Christian Parkers performance and the units execution, adding outside pressure to a conversation the Cowboys cant ignore. Brian Schottenheimer acknowledged there were some defensive shortcomings, even as he pointed to positives from a recent win, but the bigger concern in Dallas remains whether the defense can clean up enough to keep games from unraveling the way this one did. [Read more 🡒]
Cowboys Getting Booed At Home As Dak And Defense Crumble
The afternoon at AT&T Stadium turned sour quickly for a Cowboys team trying to protect home turf, as Tampa Bay kept stringing together long, methodical drives and sent Dallas into the fourth quarter trailing. What had started as a chance to settle things down after an uneven stretch instead became a scene of frustration, with the crowd growing restless as the Buccaneers kept moving the ball and the Cowboys struggled to answer.
Dak Prescott had trouble finding any rhythm, missing throws and throwing an interception, while the defense compounded the problem by giving up yardage and committing penalties that helped keep Tampa Bay possessions alive. Rookie quarterback Jalon Daniels, filling in for the injured Baker Mayfield, handled the moment well for the Buccaneers, and the combination of efficient offense and Dallas miscues left the home side chasing the game and hearing it from its own fans. [Read more 🡒]