Perhaps now, with the team having fallen to 2-6, the talk of the Dallas Cowboys as legitimate playoff contenders can finally cease.
It had begun to seem that nothing could discourage Cowboys supporters. The team has lost every game since Tony Romo was injured in a Week 2 win, but even with Dallas trailing Philadelphia late in the game Sunday night, on the way to the team’s sixth consecutive loss, the NBC broadcast crew was detailing scenarios in which the Cowboys could win the NFC East.
But when overtime rolled around, Sam Bradford of the Eagles hit Jordan Matthews for a 41-yard touchdown, sealing Dallas’ fate in the game and perhaps for the season.
Dallas now has its longest losing streak since 1989, which was Tom Landry’s last season as the team’s coach, and it is in last place in the division, three games behind the New York Giants in the win column. If it is still technically in playoff contention, that is more of an indictment of the NFL’s division system than of the team’s quality. There are currently 14 teams in the NFC with superior records to the Cowboys, leaving just the 1-6 Detroit Lions behind them.
The team’s poor record did not stop Matt Cassel, the team’s current starting quarterback, from discussing the Cowboys as if a turnaround was on the horizon.
“We’ve got to go out there and continue to compete,” Cassel said in the postgame news conference. “The minute you start worrying about rankings I don’t think you’re going to give your best effort.”
In the six-game losing streak, Dallas has been outscored by a combined 66-30 in the fourth quarter and overtime. Brandon Weeden quickly proved himself incapable of leading the offense. Cassel looked like his job security could be in trouble as well before Sunday’s reasonable effort, which included 299 passing yards and three touchdowns but also a fourth-quarter interception that was returned for a touchdown.
Sean Lee, the centerpiece of the Cowboys’ front seven, left the game with a concussion, which was his second of the season. Lee, a middle linebacker, has dealt with numerous injuries, but under the NFL’s concussion protocol he will need to be closely monitored. He did not miss any time after his first concussion, which he suffered in Week 4.
Despite all of that, some are still envisioning a situation in which Romo’s return cures all that ails the team. But even with all reports indicating he will be ready to go when he is eligible in Week 11, things will not get much easier for the Cowboys. Romo’s return is expected to come against the currently undefeated Carolina Panthers, and the team’s final six games of the season also include tough matchups against Green Bay, Buffalo and the New York Jets.
It is not mathematically over in Dallas, but an 0-6 record in the team’s first six games without Romo is worse than even the harshest Dallas critics could have envisioned. And as good as Romo is, the hole the team has dug itself looks to be too deep to climb out of.
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