FRISCO - By almost any metric, the Dallas Cowboys' season up until this point has been a disaster, and there's no sugarcoating the issues that have plagued coach Mike McCarthy's team.
From the absurd amount of turnovers, to the defense getting run over and conceding points in bundles, to the costly penalties, it has all led to a 3-6 record with the Cowboys having one of the worst defenses in football (28.8 per game, ranks 31st) and an offense averaging just 19.7 points a game (ranks 23rd).
With not much to get excited about for the rest of the season after Dak Prescott's hamstring injury put a red line through Dallas' season, backup Trey Lance has offered up a uniquely confident and insanely puzzling take on what has transpired this season.
“I think in all of our losses across the board, there hasn't been too many games where we felt like a team was just better than us really, any game honestly,” Lance said. “I think that with the guys we have in this locker room especially on offense, we have a lot of weapons, great coaching staff, and guys that put us in positions to be successful so for us it's just our job to go out and execute.”
Not many teams have been "better" than the Cowboys? Actually by rule, six teams have already beaten the Cowboys, so there's that. And the the manner of defeats and their severity? They show a clear gap between Dallas and the teams they have faced.
The 44-17 loss to the New Orleans Saints, a 47-9 defeat to the Detroit Lions, the 28-25 smashing to the Baltimore Ravens (scoreline flattered Dallas), and then the 34-6 beatdown by the Philadelphia Eagles all resonate.
In those games alone, by score, Dallas was the inferior team. And the Cowboys were also inferior in losses to the San Francisco 49ers or Atlanta Falcons as well.
Here's another set of numbers detailing Dallas' work at home: In their last five games in Arlington they have trailed by ... 32 to the Green Bay Packers (in the playoff loss), 25 to the Saints, 22 to the Ravens, 38 to the Lions and 28 to the Eagles.
That is the ugliest non-competitive stretch in the franchise's storied history. In fact, the Cowboys are the only team in NFL history to trail by 20+ in five consecutive home games.
Want another telling stat? The Cowboys come out of the locker room at halftime and get murdered. Every time. Dallas in third quarters this year has been outscored 82-22. That's .... incredible.
We sort of admire young Trey's naive confidence in his team, and it can be argued that the Cowboys - with what McCarthy often painfully refers to as "self-inflicted wounds'' - often contribute to beating themselves.
But here's hoping that the franchise leaders don't echo Lance's sentiment, that this team is really "better" than its opponents and better than its shown, because that would be a lie that would only serve to get in the way of true change and true progress.
