SANTA CLARA, Calif. — There is nothing about the Dallas Cowboys that is silent or stealth, and on a Sunday night when America’s Team nearly snuck up on and stole a game from the San Francisco 49ers, its stay at Levi’s Stadium both began and ended with a bang.
This time, Jerry Jones — so often the source of the noise surrounding his franchise — was a victim. After approaching the venue in the first of a three-SUV entourage and clearing a security check, the 82-year-old owner and his wife, Gene, were startled by a resounding thud: An abruptly deployed rising barricade had struck the vehicle behind them, injuring their daughter, Charlotte, and son, Jerry Jr.
“It’s a (device) that’s meant to stop a car,” a still-shaken Jones told me on the sideline before the game. “Well, let me tell you something — it works.”
Hours later, after a furious fourth-quarter rally had fallen short and the Cowboys had succumbed by a 30-24 score, cornerback Trevon Diggs emerged from the visitors’ locker room, which was not yet open to the media, to confront a Dallas television reporter about a social media post from the third quarter that questioned the player’s effort on a 43-yard catch-and-run by 49ers tight end George Kittle. As Diggs was walking away, the reporter suggested they discuss the matter further.
“Talk about deez nuts,” retorted Diggs, who did not make himself available for interviews.
Hey, with these Cowboys, it’s all ball — except when it isn’t.
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Other than that, it was a totally uneventful evening for a team awash in drama and deflated expectations, and trending poorly on both counts. Throw in kicker Brandon Aubrey’s ongoing stint as a juror on a felony trial and the growing sense that Mike McCarthy is a lame-duck coach with a nearly impossible mission, and quarterback Dak Prescott’s two interceptions in front of tens of millions of viewers seem almost ancillary by comparison.
Seven games into a season Jones emblazoned with an “all in” sense of urgency, his team seems to be out of answers. Dallas is 3-4, but this being the Cowboys, it feels like 3-and-400.
“We’re the most visible team in sports,” veteran running back Ezekiel Elliott said afterward. “This is all part of it. We’ve just got to block it out.”
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It won’t be easy. Jones, in recent weeks, has caused a stir by pulling a Diggs-like move and threatening to fire the local radio hosts whose show he appears on twice weekly. After getting over that spat, prompted by questions the owner didn’t appreciate, he tried to account for the Cowboys’ offensive struggles by asserting that McCarthy and his assistants are “designing bad plays, or we’re designing bad concepts.”
McCarthy, who coached the Green Bay Packers to a Super Bowl XLV victory in the stadium Jones owns, has gone 12-5 in each of his three regular seasons as Dallas’ coach, but doing that in 2024 will be extremely challenging. That’s inconvenient, given that McCarthy is in the final year of his contract — and that his roster has some obvious weaknesses.
The Cowboys have the league’s worst rushing offense and, along with the Carolina Panthers, are allowing more yards per game on the ground than any other team. That’s a dastardly double that is tough to overcome, and when you throw in a minus-eight turnover ratio — the NFL’s third-worst figure — a quick turnaround is hard to fathom.
“We’re green,” McCarthy told me as he walked to the team buses long after Sunday’s game. “We have a lot of young guys, and they’ve got to keep working. And we have a lot of veterans who are new, so they’re adjusting, too. Our continuity isn’t there, and that’s gonna show up in run defense and running the ball.
“Because of all that, we can’t play wide open and balls to the wall. We have to address those two areas — running it and stopping the run, and turnover ratio — and try to find a way to grind out games.”
Even after Jordan Mason left the game, the Cowboys defense was no match for 49ers rookie Isaac Guerendo. (Kelley L Cox / Imagn Images)
That’s basically what happened in the first half of Sunday’s game against the 49ers (4-4), another high-profile team experiencing its own midseason malaise. Dallas took a 10-6 lead into the locker room and, despite the absence of its injured pass-rushing threats (Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence), seemed capable of keeping the Niners’ offense in check.
Then the third quarter began, and the Cowboys were forced to check themselves. The 49ers scored three consecutive touchdowns to take a 27-10 with 36 seconds left in the period, evoking memories of a Sunday night blowout in last October’s meeting between the two teams at Levi’s.
This time, however, the Cowboys made things mighty interesting. Prescott connected with star receiver CeeDee Lamb (13 catches, 146 yards) on a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns on which the wideout was wide open. Those were somewhat redemptive moments for McCarthy, whose play designs seemed pretty far from bad in those instances — “He was schemed open on both of those (plays),” Prescott told me afterward — and for Lamb, whose routes were recently criticized by ex-Cowboys great Troy Aikman.
Have I mentioned that there’s a lot of noise surrounding this team?
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After Lamb’s second scoring catch, with 3:32 to go, Aubrey’s extra point cut the 49ers’ lead to 30-24. The jury was still out on whether the Cowboys could complete the comeback, an expression that surely makes some of the second-year kicker’s teammates and coaches cringe, given the circumstances.
Aubrey, without consulting the team, showed up for jury duty on his off day last Tuesday and ended up being selected for a felony trial. That meant he’d miss practice during the week; he compensated by showing up on his own in the evenings to get some work in at the team’s training facility.
When he arrived at The Star on Thursday night, the indoor practice field was being used to host a high school game. So he went to the outdoor field, where the sprinklers were on and the lights were off. “He kicked in the dark,” one witness said, rolling his eyes. “I guess it’s better than nothing.”
All the Cowboys’ angst would have abated had they somehow pulled out Sunday’s game, which seemed plausible after Lamb’s touchdown catches. Already this season, the 49ers had twice blown 10-point leads in the fourth quarter in losses to a pair of division opponents, the Los Angeles Rams and Arizona Cardinals.
Could it happen again? The Cowboys ramped up the tension by forcing a three-and-out, taking over at their own 25-yard-line with 3:05 to go. Prescott, however, threw four consecutive incompletions, draining the game of its remaining suspense.
Afterward, he and Elliott spoke defiantly about the Cowboys’ prospects, insisting they’re capable of getting hot at the right time and making a run. “It’s a tough league and a tough business,” Prescott said. “We’ve been through worse and come out of it.”
Said Elliott: “We’ve got a very strong locker room and a very strong leadership group, and there’s no quarterback I’d rather go to battle with. In a month it could be a whole different situation.”
That would be a bit of a stunner, given that the Cowboys’ next four opponents — the Atlanta Falcons, Philadelphia Eagles, Houston Texans and Washington Commanders — all have winning records. In a meeting with his players (but no other coaches) following Dallas’ 47-9 home defeat to the Detroit Lions two weeks ago, McCarthy stressed the importance of staying together amid the mounting chorus of negativity on the outside. As Diggs’ conspicuous confrontation with a media member showed, that’s not always as simple as it sounds.
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“I have this bad feeling that this could be one of those years,” one Cowboys executive said.
Sometimes, in football and in life, the barriers are too much to overcome. Jones wasn’t around to discuss the Cowboys’ defeat Sunday night, but he surely won’t soon forget his trip to Levi’s. Several sources said Charlotte Jones was feared to have suffered broken ribs, while Jerry Jones Jr. may have sustained a concussion. Both were checked out by medical personnel and cleared to watch the game from the family’s suite.
The incident injected a surreal strain into an already trying season, and when the Cowboys’ players learned what had happened to the owner and his family, some found it hard to fathom.
“Unreal,” Prescott said as he sat at his locker, shaking his head. “The Cowboys can’t catch a break.”
(Top photo of Mike McCarthy: Kelley L Cox / Imagn Images)