GREEN BAY, Wis. – After changes in personnel, additions on the defensive staff and a mini-bye week, the Cowboys fell 32-13 on the road to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night.
Dallas' defense has struggled to start the season, but the offense hasn't been able to find consistent rhythm for the last two weeks, scoring a combined 29 points in losses to the Buccaneers and Packers. Given the offensive talent Dallas has, Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer knows that isn't good enough.
"The effort is right, the fight is right, but mistakes are killing us," Schottenheimer said. "Repeating mistakes is not what we're about. We've got to protect the football. Five turnovers in two games, not very good. Got to find a running game. That starts with myself and the offensive staff. Got to get off the field on third down on defense…"
"We've got to clean it up. Lost two games in a row, haven't played well, got to take a hard look at it, and that starts with me."
The Cowboys offense gained just 303 total yards of offense, their second-lowest total of the season. On the ground, Dallas rushed for just 48 yards on 15 carries and threw the ball 54 times. The Cowboys ran just one run play after Javonte Williams scored Dallas' first touchdown with 9:19 to go in the third quarter, which Schottenheimer said was not part of the plan.
"I just don't think we played very well," Schottenheimer said. "I think [the Packers] did a good job, it's a really good pass defense. I didn't plan on coming to this game and having to throw it 54 times, that wasn't the plan, it's not a good recipe against this defense that's been down against the run and pretty good against the pass. That wasn't a good recipe for us. But that's the way the game turned out."
Cowboys QB Dak Prescott under pressure for a majority of the night, being pressured a total of 21 times. When under pressure, Prescott was 11/19 for 74 yards and a touchdown, but only averaged 3.9 yards per attempt, marking uncharacteristic back to back weeks of struggles for Prescott against pressure.
"The first thing I would say is we haven't played a normal game in the last two games," Schottenheimer said when asked about the struggles against pressure. "We've been playing from behind, that's a little bit hard. One of the best things to do against the blitz is you can get runs and stuff that crease and they're big plays, that's part of it."
"But again, if you look at Dak historically, he's been really good against the blitz. This is two games that we have to take a look at, but my first thing that I go to is today we put ourselves in a position where we've got to throw the ball all around and go two-minute, up tempo to try to get back in the game. That's going to be hard to do in the National Football League."
Schottenheimer mentioned his frustration with repeating mistakes multiple times. Some of those examples include the defense allowing Green Bay to go 11-18 on third down and Dallas being called for 11 penalties that amounted to 108 penalty yards. These are things that have been discussed, among others, but still need to translate into improvement on the field.
"We've got to fix the mistakes that we've talked about," Schottenheimer said. "This is something that we've addressed and talked about. Again, it starts with myself and the coaching staff to understand, again, the ball matters more than anything in the National Football League. It's the ball. Second, it's the line of scrimmage. And we haven't been very good in the last two games, so that's what we're responsible and accountable for. And I stand up here and accept that."
Defensively, Dallas was able to limit the Packers to 57 yards rushing, tallied three sacks, pressured Jordan Love 20 times and did not give up a touchdown in the second half. There's still improvement needed for Christian Parker's unit, but Schottenheimer was pleased with some aspects.
"I though the defense did a really good job stopping the run," Schottenheimer said. "I thought that was really, really good. Got some pressure on the quarterback which was good. I don't think we did a very good job blocking some movement stuff in the run game, that hurt us. I want to look at the film, but those are the areas that I really believe. I believe the fight was right, I believe the effort was right, but the execution wasn't clean enough."
"Change" was a word used a lot after the Cowboys fell 24-16 to the Buccaneers on Thursday Night Football in Week 5. Schottenheimer said there would be changes, and there were on Sunday night. There still could be more coming, but he won't change who he is as a person.
"I'm not opposed to shaking things up," Schottenheimer said. "That's different than saying I'm not going to change. I'm never going to change. I'm not going to change who I am and how I look at the game, doesn't mean we're not willing to change things up and look at things. There were some subtle changes tonight, there were some changes from a personnel standpoint, there were some changes that happened. But obviously, we didn't do enough good things to win, and that's the name of the game."
In a division where every team lost on Sunday, and the Commanders play the unbeaten 49ers on Monday night, there still is a chance for the Cowboys to emerge atop the NFC East with 11 games remaining. But there's a lot that will need to happen to get there, starting with finding a victory.
"We're in a hole, we put ourselves there," Schottenheimer said. "There's one way out of it. That's what I told the guys. We've got to work, we've got to find solutions, can't repeat mistakes. They understand that."
The Cowboys now get an extra day to prepare, as they'll head to Philadelphia next Monday night and take on the 2-4 Eagles.
