Cowboys Corner: Report card for bye week, including an ‘F’ for defense

David Helman

NFL Reporter

Ralph Vacchiano

NFL Reporter

The first six games of the season for the Dallas Cowboys have felt more like six years. They’ve seen their Super Bowl dreams deteriorate. They’ve seen all their old problems resurface. They’ve even lost all three of their games at home.

And boy, do they ever need their bye week after their humiliating, 47-9 loss to the Detroit Lions last Sunday. They are beaten, bruised and their egos are battered. It is the perfect time for a rest.

But as they take their break, there’s no avoiding how bad the start to their season has been at times. Even their 3-0 start on the road has been propped up by games against the Browns (1-5) and Giants (2-4). It’s not all terrible. They are a .500 team and they’re only one game back in the NFC East race.

It just hasn’t been the championship-caliber start they expected in a season when their owner promised they were “all in.”

So, as the Cowboys take stock of where they are, FOX Sports NFL writers David Helman and Ralph Vacchiano will do that too, turning this week’s Cowboys corner into a not-quite-midseason report card. Here are the grades for some key people and the team overall:

Head Coach Mike McCarthy

Helman: I’ve been a longtime defender of McCarthy, because he’s brought a level of stability to Dallas that the organization hadn’t seen in decades. You can scoff at the playoff failures all you want, but 2021-23 was the first time the Cowboys had strung together three consecutive playoff appearances since they were winning championships in the 90s.

With all of that said, I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to defend six weeks into 2024. This team looks mostly abysmal on both sides of the ball, and a lot of that lies at McCarthy’s feet. He certainly deserves some blame for a shaky offensive performance, as he is in his second year as the playcaller. Everything looks hard for that unit….

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Publish date : 2024-10-18 13:05:12

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