The Cowboys are weighing their options at tight end after Jake Ferguson’s costly drop helped sink Dallas in a brutal Week 5 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Dallas was expected to handle a Buccaneers team that was still winless going into Thursday night, but instead Brian Schottenheimer’s group looked flat at home and walked away with an ugly defeat. Dak Prescott threw two interceptions, the defense had no answer for Bucky Irving, and KaVontae Turpin’s second-half kickoff-return fumble added to the mess.
Schottenheimer called it “a missed opportunity” after the game. “I told the guys in [the locker room] that it was a missed opportunity.
We didn’t really play well in all three phases, and certainly not good enough to win a game in the National Football League. And they know that,” he said.
“Again, it comes down to this being the National Football League, and it’s going to come down to the fourth quarter. And even with as poorly as we performed, we had a chance to still get back in and try to win the game, and we came up short.”
That late chance is where Ferguson’s miscue became impossible to ignore. On a potential game-tying drive, Prescott put a pass right in Ferguson’s hands, only for the ball to pop up and land in the arms of Buccaneers linebacker Alex Anzalone for an interception.
The frustration around Ferguson has grown quickly. He has 102 yards, three touchdowns and a fumble this season, and Cowboys fans have clearly hit their limit.
Schottenheimer was asked this weekend whether Ferguson could see fewer snaps and whether backups Brevyn Spann-Ford and Luke Schoonmaker might get more work. His answer left the door open.
“At the end of the day, everything’s being evaluated,” Schottenheimer said. “As we look at this process, no one’s sicker than (Ferguson) about (his dropped pass that turned into an interception). We know what a great player he is, but at the same time, we’re evaluating all that stuff.
“I think we’ve proven that we’ve got really three really good tight ends. Those are the conversations that we’ll have in-house with these guys and make them understand.
But if the performance is not where it is, then we’re going to have the conversation, explain to them why, show them the why. There’ll certainly be some adjustments or changes that come.”
That makes it sound like Spann-Ford could be in line for a bigger role in Week 6 against the Green Bay Packers.
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