This season has not gone anywhere close to as planned for Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys.
After falling to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday night, the Cowboys dropped to 3-4 and are 2.5 games back of the Washington Commanders for the NFC East lead while navigating significant injuries on defense and a suddenly dramatic regression by quarterback Dak Prescott and the offense.
With All-Pros Micah Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence and DaRon Bland sidelined, the Cowboys’ defense has been a shell of itself, which is something Parsons took issue with on his podcast this week.
“What do we say to the critics who say that we’re in a meltdown,” Parsons wondered aloud, during a conversation with teammate Trevon Diggs. “If you were to tell me that we’re down all of these defensive players, and a few offensive players, and you’d tell me we’d be leading a game at halftime and maybe lose a game by six to the San Francisco 49ers, and knowing that we’re going to get those starters back, I’d say you’re delusional.
“If you don’t think me and [Demarcus Lawrence], or [DaRon] Bland, or anybody like that can make a stop or make a play in any moment of that game on Sunday night, you’re just outrageous, you’re delusional. You’re going to scheme differently.”
Whether the Cowboys can turn this season around remains to be seen, but Dallas is going to need to start stacking up some conference wins and division victories if they were going to make any inroads in both the NFC East division and NFC Wild Card races.
After all, the Cowboys have already lost to the New Orleans Saints, Detroit Lions and 49ers within the conference which could come into play when it comes to potential playoff tiebreakers.
Not everyone inside the league believes the Cowboys can turn things around.
“Their issues probably run deeper than health,” a veteran NFC East scout recently told me, on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about another team. “After you lose your defensive coordinator it now becomes learning something new with regards to the run fits for the defensive line and linebackers.
“Schematically, they’ve made some changes and the personnel being different for what Mike Zimmer likes to do with his interior guys is different compared to how Dan Quinn runs things.”
