Red, White & Blew It: Dallas Cowboys Embarrassed in Loss to Broncos

The Cowboys entered Week 9 believing they have "something special going.'' After being throttled by the Broncos? Time to think again?

ARLINGTON - Who says you can't have it all?

The Dallas Cowboys, in this Week 9 debacle of a performance, just said it.

Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy has recently not hesitated to say that he believes this team, before Sunday's 30-16 throttling at the hands of the visiting Denver Broncos here at AT&T, anyway, has "something special going.''

“We feel like we got something really special going with our locker room and with everything that’s going on,” he said this week. “(And) we’re doing something with it, that’s the most important part. 

"We need to keep winning. ... But, yeah ... I definitely feel strongly we have something special brewing here.”

Note how immediately after acknowledging the big-picture "specialness,'' McCarthy pushed the concept of his locker room also focus on the play-to-play and on the day-to-day.

Sunday showed why the latter is so important.

Sunday showed that the Cowboys failed to heed the coach's instructions.

“We were out-coached, we were outplayed all the way through,'' McCarthy said after the game. "This is the first time I felt our energy didn’t exceed our opponent’s, and that was disappointing. … We weren’t the most physical team today.”

Dallas, with quarterback Dak Prescott back in the saddle after a week off nursing a calf strain, was supposed to join McCarthy in setting the tone for the Cowboys ... and what a tone it was to be in Week 9, with the organization recognizing both the NFL's "Salute to Service'' and the new National Medal of Honor Museum (an Arlington-based passion project of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' family) in all of its "America's Team'' glory, right down to the red helmet stripe last worn in the U.S. Bicentennial year of 1976.

But instead? Red, white and ... blew it.

Conventional wisdom said the Cowboys could win on emotion - it is easy to imagine that the Broncos (now 5-4) feel robbed of their chance to be "special'' by last week's trade to the Rams of All-Pro pass-rusher Von Miller, a sort of give-up move - while the return of Prescott would be absolutely inflating. 

But this was a deflation. A violation of "conventional wisdom.'' A sloppy sleepwalk through a noon kickoff in which almost literally nobody on offense made a play until with just over four minutes left, Prescott (a deceptive 19 of 39 for 232 yards with two TDs) lobbed a meaningless TD pass to sixth-on-the-depth-chart receiver Malik Turner, a play that really caused just one reaction:

"Why is Dak Prescott still in the game?''

And on defense? Denver rushed for almost 200 yards and showed no fear of throwing into the Trevon Diggs-led secondary.

We just have to take this as a piece of humble pie,'' said defensive leader Jayron Kearse. "That was embarrassing today. All parts of it. ... It was bad just to hear the (visiting fans at AT&T) chanting, ‘Broncos,’ in our home stadium. 

"It goes in with everything about how embarrassing it was today.''

Both McCarthy and Prescott time and time again refer to as "complementary football,'' meaning the work of the vaunted offense and the rising defense go hand-in-glove. Well, they accomplished that here, in reverse: In terms of incompetence, Dallas' offense and defense were ideally matched.

Dallas has now lost seven straight to the Broncos and hasn't won in the matchup since 1995, and that's an oddity. So, the Cowboys hope, is this outcome, maybe just a "learning-experience'' blip on the 2021 radar on the way to a Super Bowl run.

But "special''? For the moment, they've kind of ruined that.

A better word? Owner Jones used it: "Certainly, it’s inexplicable.''

Dallas' greatest accomplishment coming in to Sunday?

"Building confidence is probably a No. 1,'' McCarthy said this week. "We’re a more confident team than we were two games ago.''

And now the 6-2 Dallas Cowboys are a less confident team than they were. And a less special team, too. 

PHOTO RECAP: Cowboys vs. Broncos

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