| Advertisement |
IRVING, Tex. -- Hope seems futile for the reeling Dallas Cowboys but they are not giving up and plan to fight to the finish. The Cowboys are 2-6 and riding a six-game losing streak, their longest since they went 1-15 in 1989. Since 1990, no NFL team has started 2-6 and made the playoffs. The Cowboys are in last place in the NFC East and would need to go 7-1 the rest of the way, starting Sunday at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3-5) just to get to 9-7.
Advertisement
And that might not even be good enough.
"Oh, I think we always try to provide perspective for our team," HEAD coach Jason Garrett said. "I think you always want to address that, the perspective part of where we are, where we've been and where we're going and what's out there. But I don't think you want to spend too much time talking about other teams in the division, playoff races and all that kind of stuff. What we need to do is get better. We'll show them why we need to get better, how we're going to get better and we'll give them a plan going forward from what we need to do on that day, tomorrow, to make our football team better. That's how we're going to approach it."
A disappointed Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said it feels like 1989 all over again for his seemingly snake-bit team, considering that five of this season's losses have come down to the fourth quarter or overtime.
But he said all they can do is stay the course.
"We understand. We can add and subtract," Jones said. "We know what is ahead of us. We just are very disappointed for everybody concerned that we haven't won more games. It feels like that. It seems like we can't buy a turnover. We can't seemingly get ourselves in position to win one of these ballgames. There's not but one thing to do: put our head down and go forward and try to get better and try to get better and play Tampa."
Jones said he never thought the Cowboys would be in the position they are in. But he is not looking back now.
"I would never weigh what our efforts have been in the offseason, what our efforts were in the draft, what our efforts were to put our team together. I would never at this juncture ever say anything other than we're here to compete. We're not competing at a high enough level to meet our goals and we have to figure out a way to compete; that's on everybody's shoulders."
The Cowboys are admittedly frustrated and seemingly at wits end about a season that's gone off the rails because of injuries and an inability to make plays and get it done when it matters most.
But despite the frustrations of the outcomes, therein also lies a source of hope for the Cowboys.
This is a team that hasn't won. But it's not one that is giving up or giving in.
"It hasn't been good enough," Garrett said. "We have to address why it hasn't been good enough. In many of those games it came down literally to the last play of the game, a couple of overtime games, a couple of last series of the game where you're not getting a stop, not making a play on offense. That's the nature of the NFL, the teams that make the playoffs and have success in this league are best in those situations. So all of this stuff about how we play is important. It's the foundation of the entire program."
Garrett said the can build on how they continued to play and continued to fight against the Eagles Sunday. They battled back four times in the second half from deficits to tie the game, including three in the fourth quarter, before losing in overtime.
"Just in how we play. How matters. How we practice and how we play matters," Garrett said. "We emphasize that to our team a lot. We believe if you play the right way over time you're going to get the results you want. Now, did we play perfectly yesterday? No, we did not. There is plenty of stuff to clean up and we recognize that. But the spirit we played with, the relentlessness we played with, the fight that we played with, makes me know the kind of guys we have on our football team. We're going to keep coaching them and we're going to keep teaching them and we're going to keep trying to get things right and they're going to respond the right way."
--The Cowboys defense is just as responsible for the six-game losing streak as is the loss of quarterback Tony Romo. They haven't made stops in critical situations. They haven't forced takeaways. And, quite frankly, they haven't played up to expectations.
The latest example came in Sunday night's 33-27 overtime loss to Philadelphia. The Cowboys gave up eight plays of at least 20 yards with no takeaways.
"We believe we have guys who can make big plays for us," head coach Jason Garrett said Monday. "They've done it before, and we're confident they can do it again. We've got to keep trying to give them tools as a coaching staff to do that. We'll work on things in practice to get better. But the biggest thing that we haven't done on defense is take the ball away."
The Cowboys have not had a takeaway in six of eight games this season, and have only four for the season. A year ago they ranked second in the league with 31 takeaways.
--The Cowboys are continuing to double down in their support of defensive end Greg Hardy, despite mounting scrutiny and criticism after Deadspin released photos of injuries to Hardy's ex-girlfriend.
"I'll just say this one thing about the Greg Hardy situation: We as an organization, we don't condone domestic violence," head coach Jason Garrett said. "We take the issue very, very seriously. We knew when we signed Greg Hardy there would be some criticism that came with that. We laid out expectations for Greg right from the start. We decided that we were going to give him a second chance, but in doing so, the expectations and the standards that we set would be very clear to him -- how he, and really everybody else, is supposed to conduct themselves on the football field and off the football field. And those expectations and those standards are very clear to him. We decided to give him a second chance. He's worked hard for our football team up to this point. He knows what the expectations and standards are, and we're going to hold him accountable to those."
The Cowboys signed the controversial defensive end to an incentive-laden deal worth up to $13.1 million in March before the league suspended Hardy. He missed all but one game last season after being arrested and charged with attacking Nicole Holder. A judge in Mecklenburg County, N.C., officially expunged the charges Thursday.
But criticism of Hardy and the Cowboys was renewed Friday when Deadspin released a series of photos and a story detailing the injuries suffered by Holder in the May 2014 incident.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who issued a statement Friday, reiterated his support of Hardy after the game.
"Greg has a commitment to us," Jones said. "He has a commitment to do the right thing. We expect him to do the right thing. He has a commitment to his teammates and our team. The way it's set up in the NFL, relative to behavior, and in fact we wanted to give Greg a second chance. And you lose that in the NFL if you don't do the right things. If he will do the right things, if he will take advantage of the opportunities that he has got there and this second chance, then we'll see how it goes."
Hardy did not talk after the game, but Saturday on Twitter, he expressed regret for "past" incidents.
Hardy had three tackles and a sack that ended a Philadelphia drive late in the third quarter. He also had an offside penalty and a personal foul.
--Wide receiver Dez Bryant returned to form against the Eagles in what was his second game back after missing six with a fractured foot. He had five catches for 114 yards and an acrobatic 25-yard touchdown catch from Matt Cassel. Bryant had two catches for 12 yards against the Seahawks the previous week.
"I thought he played well," head coach Jason Garrett said of Bryant. "I think you saw Dez Bryant last night and you saw right from the start. Last week, he was working his way back in to playing football. I don't care how good of a football player you are, how good of a player you've been, you haven't practiced that much and you haven't played the games, it's a transition to come back and start playing in the NFL against good football players. Dez worked his way through the Seattle game, did a couple good things, but I think you saw what he's all about yesterday. He made some big plays in the game for us early on, made them in the middle, made an unbelievable catch for the touchdown, drew some pass interference penalties or defensive holding penalties at the end of the ballgame, so he's a damn good player and he played well. He'll continue to get better and better."
Bryant tweaked his knee on the touchdown against the Eagles and will be again be limited in practice this week. Garrett doesn't expect it to hold him back against the Buccaneers.
--Wide receiver Cole Beasley had a breakout game against the Eagles. Beasley caught nine passes for 112 yards and two touchdowns out of the slot after being shut out without a catch the previous two games.
--Running back Darren McFadden is one player who the Cowboys are no longer holding back. He rushed 27 times for 117 yards against the Eagles. It was his third straight game of 20 or more carries and second time in the last three weeks that he topped 100 yards.
When the Cowboys signed the veteran McFadden in the offseason, it was to be a backup to Joseph Randle in the team's running back by committee.
The troubled and disappointing Randle has now been released and McFadden, who never had three straight games of 20 or more carries during an disappointing and injury-riddled seven years in Oakland from 2008-2014, is the team's workhorse back.
No other runner carried the ball on Sunday.
"Well, I think he's symbolic of our team in a lot of ways," Garrett said. "He's competing his ass off and fighting and scratching and clawing. A number of those runs, at the end of runs, he's about six inches off the ground, not letting his knee go down - fighting for those extra yards, always finishing forward. We value finishing forward. We value finishing forward on offense, knocking them back on defense - we think those yards, those feet, those inches matter. We try to preach that to our team, and when you see a guy like that do that consistently, over and over and over again, I think it's contagious throughout your team. He's made some great contributions in the last couple weeks."
--LinebackerSean Lee is undergoing concussion protocol after suffering a head injury against the Eagles. It's his second concussion in the last six weeks. He is listed as day to day heading into the Buccaneers game. He must pass all the concussion tests before being cleared to practice or play.
