Continuing the trend of only playing in blowouts this season, the Dallas Cowboys were on the wrong end of one against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday Night, receiving a 42-10 thrashing.
This one somehow hurts more than the Arizona Cardinals loss. That game felt like a fluke, and like the team maybe wasn't taking it seriously enough. But the 49ers matchup was supposed to be a potential NFC Championship preview. Dallas' first big test of the season. A chance to prove this Cowboys team can be Super Bowl bound.
Losing this one will have much bigger consequences in the locker room.
These five people in particular need to be very careful after the loss, because they're now on thin ice in Dallas.
1. Mike McCarthy
Both losses this season have come with a distinct feeling that the Cowboys were outcoached, and that's not something Jerry Jones is going to ignore.
I'm not saying Mike McCarthy is about to be the first head coach fired this season, but his long-term future in Dallas is far from guaranteed, and games like this one are pushing the team much closer to having to take action.
It's hard to look good against the 49ers defense, sure, but the offense looked more than just overmatched. It looked uninspired, and the playcalling was all over the place.
McCarthy gets some credit for the way he's getting KaVontae Turpin involved, but it's not like that touchdown was some genius play design — it was simply Turpin being too fast to cover. And beyond that, the Cowboys' offense looked anemic all night.
Add in that the red zone issues from the Cardinals loss already looked squarely to be at McCarthy's feet, and suddenly there's going to be a lot riding on how well he performs over the next few weeks.
2. Donovan Wilson
Donovan Wilson struggled in that loss to the Cardinals and then was one of the few Cowboys to have a bad game against the Patriots in Week 4. But some amount of that could be written off as a guy working his way back from injury.
But last night made for his third straight disappointing game.
Wilson opened the night with a 15-yard facemask penalty, and then only a quarter later added another 15-yarder with an unnecessary roughness. It's one thing to have struggles against a good offense, and another entirely to give up 30 free yards from a lack of discipline.
His 7 tackles on the night might paint a decent picture, but a few of them were just cleaning up a run that had already gone for decent yardage, and the majority of them were also pretty routine plays. The kind of plays that would be an even bigger red flag to miss.
We were excited to get Wilson back after he missed the first two games of the season, but that excitement has quickly worn off.
It's not clear whether he's still struggling with his injury or he's simply not playing well, but this defense has way too much safety depth for Wilson's job to be safe while giving us these results on the field. It would be no surprise if his playing time is already reduced next week, and it may not be long before he finds himself spending the majority of his time watching games from the sideline.
3. Brandin Cooks
The trio of CeeDee Lamb, Brandin Cooks and Michael Gallup is supposed to be one of the best groups of wide receivers in the NFL — a real "pick your poison" situation for defenders.
But Cooks has yet to really show any flashes of why Cowboys fans were so excited to have him in Dallas.
Cooks earned 4 targets in the passing game on Sunday Night, catching just 1 of them and gaining 7 yards. So now he is four games (five weeks) into his Cowboys career, and he hasn’t topped 30 yards in a single contest.
In fact, Cooks' season-long receiving total of 73 yards is one that WR3 Michael Gallup managed to eclipse in a single game in Week 3.
Cooks hasn't even managed to out-target Gallup in a game since Week 1.
Cooks is in Dallas on a two-year contract, but there would be some solid cap savings for the Cowboys if they simply moved on from him next offseason. That possibility has to be looming large over his shoulder at this point.
Was the play-calling great? No. Did Dak make any impressive throws to get Cooks the ball? Not really. But at some point the excuses just don't cut it. This wasn't a simple one-off bad game from Cooks, but the most recent entry in a worrying trend.
4. Dak Prescott
Speaking of contract situations looming large, Dak Prescott and the Cowboys are in a very delicate spot in negotiations. Dak's going to want one of those staggering new deals we're seeing just about every great quarterback sign.
But the Cowboys have so many key players they still need to pay next offseason. And unless Dak looks capable of carrying this team to a Super Bowl, it's going to be hard to justify such a big deal.
And that's why a game like this is so worrying.
If you're paying a franchise quarterback one of those mega contracts, they don't get to have any excuses. You're paying them that kind of money because they're supposed to be enough of a difference-maker to overcome other deficits on the roster (which become inevitable because one player is taking up so much of your cap space).
But Dak went out there in Week 5 against the Cowboys' biggest obstacle for a Super Bowl appearance and totally fell flat.
His average of just 1.58 adjusted yards per pass attempt (which adds weighting for touchdowns and interceptions into the usual yards per attempt calculation) was the second-worst he has posted in a game in his entire career. Similarly, that 51.6 passer rating was the sixth worst of his career.
Making things even worse, he did it in primetime. Fair or not, having more eyes on the performance means more unhappy Cowboys fans which means a louder anti-Dak sentiment building.
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