ARLINGTON, Tex. — The Detroit Lions provided further incontrovertible proof that they are honest-to-goodness Super Bowl contenders. The Dallas Cowboys? Not so much, at least not at this point.
By Mark Maske
The Lions even put an eligible-receivers exclamation point on one of their touchdowns. They rolled to a 24-point first-half lead and coasted to a 47-9 triumph over the Cowboys.
“This was very concerning,” Jones said as he stood outside the Cowboys’ locker room. “And it was very humbling. … We’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m glad we’ve got this bye week coming up here. … This was a shocker.”
It was the Cowboys’ most lopsided home loss since 1988, the year before Jones purchased the franchise.
“I do think that we’ve got personnel out there, especially on the offensive side of the ball in a game like this, that can play better than we played today,” Jones said.
Asked whether he was shocked that the gap between his team and a leading NFC contender was that large, Jones said: “Yeah. But I think the real question is: Can we close that gap in a matter of this season? The answer is yes.”
Jerry Jones walks to the locker room after the #Cowboys suffer their worst home defeat since he purchased the team in 1989.
— Ed Werder (@WerderEdNFL) October 13, 2024
The 47 points is the most the Cowboys have ever allowed in a game in which they failed to score a touchdown. pic.twitter.com/ghqYDAy9O9
That remains to be seen. For now, the issues are plentiful. The Cowboys saw their winning streak end at two games and their record drop to 3-3 as they enter their bye week. They remained within a game of the NFC East lead only because the first-place Washington Commanders lost earlier Sunday at the Baltimore Ravens. The Cowboys are winless in their three home games this season and have been outscored 119-53 in those games by the New Orleans Saints, Ravens and Lions.
“Humbling, for sure,” quarterback Dak Prescott said when Jones’s characterizations of Sunday’s defeat were relayed to him. “Concerning? I’m not a guy to hit the panic button. I get to have the ball in my hands. I get to lead this offense. I get to lead this team. … And then shocking? I can agree [with] that, to some extent, just in the way that they came out and played harder than us in every phase.”
Wide receiver CeeDee Lamb said: “We obviously got hit in the mouth today, and it’s terrible. We’ve got to dwell on it, obviously, going into the bye week.”
Jones declared the Cowboys “all in” this year after they won the NFC East last season but were stunned by the Green Bay Packers, 48-32, in a first-round playoff game here. Jones, perhaps surprisingly, did not fire Mike McCarthy following that postseason debacle, retaining McCarthy to coach this season in the final year of his contract.
Jones did spend freely before the season on his most prominent players. He handed a four-year, $136 million contract extension to Lamb in August to end the star wide receiver’s holdout. He made Prescott the NFL’s first $60 million-per-season player with a four-year, $240 million deal struck just before a season-opening triumph at the Cleveland Browns, keeping Prescott from being eligible for unrestricted free agency following this season.
