Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and vice president Stephen Jones are refusing to panic following last Sunday’s 44-19 loss to the New Orleans Saints.
Instead they are preaching patience and showing confidence in a Cowboys team that blasted the Cleveland Browns 33-17 in the season opener with the understanding that the full reckoning for coach Mike McCarthy and his troops will come at the end of the season.
McCarthy, coming off three 12-5 seasons that ended in early playoff exits, is in the final year of his contract and must take the Cowboys to at least the NFC title game if not the Super Bowl to ensure his return in 2025
“I don’t think where he is with his contract has anything to do with [the season-opening win at] Cleveland, where we were giving accolades out to him and [defensive coordinator Mike] Zimmer or how we played Sunday,” Jones said on his weekly radio show on 105.3 The Fan. “We’re trying to get this team ready and in place to really make a run at the playoffs. On any given Sunday you can have a bad day in the NFL, and you can certainly lose a game in the NFL. And the NFL is one that you can lose several games, and if you’re playing well at the end of the year you can win the Super Bowl. And so that’s just what we’ve got.
“If we’ve got any albatross around our neck, it’s that we’ve been a good-to-very-good team during the season over the last four to five years with Mike, and we haven’t done well in the playoffs. So let’s trade some challenges during the season for doing well in the playoffs, if you want to look at it that way.”
The Cowboys may not get a chance to reverse their fortunes in the playoffs if they don’t manage the challenges during the season.
The team’s inability to stop the run against the Saints brought back bad memories of their past playoffs failures. The Cowboys brought in Zimmer to replace the departed Dan Quinn, now the coach of the Washington Commanders, with the charge of fixing the run defense.
After giving up just 93 yards against a Browns team that played from behind the entire game, the Cowboys allowed the Saints to score on their first six possessions while rushing for 190 yards with seemingly little resistance.
“What you saw was an addressing of the run game during the offseason,” Jerry Jones said. “You saw us do some different things in the run game and you saw it not being done well. You got to do what we changed to do. You have to do it better. These are not dramatic things that can be corrected.”
Jerry Jones promised Zimmer that he can correct the problems form the Saints game.
“This is not something that we can’t look to more like we played at Cleveland than we played out there the other day,” Jones said. “We saw things at certain spots we hadn’t seen during the preseason and we had players that were doing things in a way that they hadn’t done it before. So the point is can we take exactly what we’re trying to do and have it ready to go and have it ready to go in a way that can win these games during the season and get ready for the playoffs? The answer is a big yes we can.”
Jerry Jones brought up playoffs again. But the key question is can the Cowboys improve enough ahead of Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens, led by quarterback Lamar Jackson and two-time NFL rushing champion Derrick Henry.
“Obviously it’s one loss,” vice president Stephen Jones said to alldlls.com on Tuesday. “I know everybody always wants to critique the magnitude of a loss. It showed great the first week. Our business is a week-to-week business. We’ll see how the how everything plays out over the course of the season. We don’t, you don’t measure anything after a game. We have a lot of confidence in our team ready to get back to work. Our total focus is on the Ravens.”
Stephen Jones said he has full confidence in the Cowboys being able to stop the Ravens with the players and scheme they have in place.
Veteran defensive tackles Jordan Phillips and Linval Joseph, signed after training camp to bolster the run defense, struggled against the Saints. Their Pro Football Focus grades of 29.2 for Joseph and 26.1 for Phillips were among the worst on the team and among the worst in the NFL.
But Stephen Jones said there is no concerns about their ability to help the team.
“They are just getting going,” Stephen Jones said. “They came in late. Linval wasn’t even in a camp, wasn’t even pads till a couple weeks ago. This thing will be fine. No one is concerned here.”
Jerry Jones not only echoed a similar sentiment but he doubled down on the Cowboys having better on defense than have had in years. Never mind that the Cowboys did little in free agency to improve from a year ago and waited until late in training camp or after camp to bolster the roster with veterans.
“I’m about as excited over the things and the players that we’ve got that can adjust if you will, or play better than they played,” Jerry Jones said. “I’m as excited about those players and they’re many of them young players, a couple of them are newer players. I’m as excited about those players as I’ve been about any in a long time.”
The Ravens will put Jerry Jones’ faith to the test on Sunday. He sees it as an opportunity for the Cowboys to respond after being hit in the mouth and beat to the punch by the Saints.
“Sunday will give us a very great sense of awareness,” Jerry Jones said. “In my view, it will be a great teaching tool. As we get ready to play Baltimore … you have to take what we didn’t do out there Sunday, and that’s the job this week, to show each of those players what would happen had you done it the way that the plan was designed to go. … I can say that I can really not just hope and prayer, I can look and say we’ve got the people and we’ve got a scheme that will keep (that) from happening Sunday.”
