Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy was less than impressed with yet another game that his team beat themselves with poor mental mistakes.
Stop me if you've heard this before—the Dallas Cowboys and costly, avoidable penalties play a leading role in a defeat. That was the theme of the Cowboys' 27-21 loss to the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes Benz Stadium.
It's a theme that has been all too common under the guidance of head coach Mike McCarthy, and the Falcons game has dare we say it, perfectly encapsulated what the 2024 Cowboys are - an undisciplined football team.
Mental errors and a lack of discipline have undone Dallas so often, and it proved to be so again. Multiple false starts, a 12-man huddle flag, and four, yes, four turnovers on downs all paint the picture of a team that is nowhere near playoff caliber and was in desperation mode.
And McCarthy was rather pointed in his assessment of his team's mental approach to the game.
"We need to win a game," McCarthy said. "I know what everybody wants to talk about long-term; we have five losses. So I clearly understand where that puts us as far as what it will take (to make playoffs) ...
"But we're making too many self-inflicted wounds and the disappointing part about it, it's some are repeated, the pre-snap penalties are totally unacceptable. We came in here, wanted to go no-huddle or up-tempo on the ball, and you see in the first series, it was effective.
"Then I wish we'd have got more to it, but the only thing that really slowed us down was ourselves."
The self-inflicted wounds have been a constant problem, and nine penalties for 55 yards, most of which were false starts by the offense, made life that was already difficult for the Cowboys even harder.
McCarthy's frustration was on display when he angrily slammed his Microsoft Surface tablet to the turf. ...
But he's not the only one who is upset. All of this quite naturally leads to a chorus in Cowboys Nation calling for owner Jerry Jones to fire McCarthy.
Jones' post-Falcons response to that call? Another endorsement for the beleaguered coach, with Jerry saying, "He's got a lot of fire in his belly.''
Yeah, but ... the false starts. The inability to line up properly. Ill-fated silliness in decision-making, the delay of game, the illegal formation, too many men in the huddle ... "fire in the belly'' isn't fixing that.
Of course, ultimately, firing the head coach probably isn't fixing it, either.
All of that that leads the Cowboys to a 3-5 record, along with injuries to Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb to put McCarthy's team in an "unacceptable" position just nine weeks into the season.
