CHICAGO — There's a very good chance that once the Dallas Cowboys are done watching the film of their embarrassing 31-14 loss to the Chicago Bears they'll not only want to burn it, but probably fire it into the sun.
A quick defensive stop got the team off on the right foot to open the game, but a fumble by running back Javonte Williams following a 26-yard chunk play on the ground turned out to be ominous.
In all, the Cowboys' offense struggled to get going after losing All-Pro wideout CeeDee Lamb to an ankle injury — the 14-14 tie game growing into a rout by the Bears.
"I've got to go look at it from the offensive standpoint, it I know scoring 14 points is never going to be OK," said Dak Prescott after the loss."And damn sure not with this offense, this unit, the team, the players that we have and, what, and six of those were field goals. Not acceptable, not to our standard, not anywhere in what we believe in and what we're capable of doing.
And it got away quickly.
"We had a chance right there to cut it back to 10 [points], and to turn the ball over in the red zone, that's unacceptable."
The absence of Lamb created a massive void over the remainder of the game, one that shrunk the field for the Cowboys' usually high-powered offense — though Pickens was able to make an impact early before the Bears made sure to give him the CeeDee Treatment.
That forced the ball elsewhere, namely to Jake Ferguson, Pro Bowl tight end doing his part with 13 catches on 14 targets, but only averaged 6.3 yards per catch with no touchdowns; and that was exactly what the Bears were willing to accept over Pickens taking over the game.
Add in critical offensive penalties and two interceptions to go along with the aforementioned fumble, and it's a self-inflicted loss being packed in the carry-on luggage back to Dallas.
"We were biting ourselves [in the foot]," Prescott said. "We're kicking ourselves, and that's the reason that we're not converting to touchdowns and it's the reason that we're not getting first downs. It's gotta start there. Everybody's gotta look in the mirror and say, 'How can I be better?'"
That question must also apply to the defense following another poor showing against a team that struggled offensively, and mightily, before taking the field against them.
But, for Prescott, it's about what he can control.
"I know we're capable of scoring, and if we've got a score like we did last week [against the Giants], we're gonna do that," he said. "I don't get to play defense, and that's not how this game works, and the guys on offense don't. We've got to play offense to the best of our ability, regardless."
It's a sentiment echoed loudly by head coach Brian Schottenheimer, but from a platform that also addresses the defensive woes.
Not pulling any punches, Schottenheimer was bluntly honest about what the Cowboys put on tape in Chicago — a lot of very not good stuff.
"We didn't play well," he said. "We didn't play well enough to win, and so that's why we're sitting here with the loss.
They converted their downs, and we didn't. They protected the ball. We didn't.
They hit explosives. We didn't.
"This is one of the games that you look at and you're like, 'Yeah, I mean that's humbling, and it sucks.' But we can play pretty good, and we've gotta play better to win in this league."
The road to trying to return to the win column gets more arduous in Week 4 — a homecoming game for Micah Parsons leading a Green Bay Packers' defense for a team that was upset by the Cleveland Browns several days prior.
Suddenly, that game has ballooned from a like-to-win to a gotta-have-it victory for a Cowboys' team dealing with more injuries to key players and staring a possible 1-3 record in the face.
