FRISCO, Texas – Now in his eighth NFL season, Tyron Smith knows how to process losses quickly.
The Pro Bowl left tackle and the offensive line have spent the early part of the week evaluating Sunday's 16-8 defeat at Carolina – some good, as well as the breakdowns that led to six sacks on quarterback Dak Prescott.
"For us, as a group we know we've got things to clean up from the game and learn from," he said. "We can't linger too much on this last game.
We definitely have to get things figured out for this week."
The Cowboys get back to practice Wednesday. The offense will face another challenging defensive front Sunday when the division rival Giants come to AT&T Stadium this Sunday.
Prescott's six sacks were the second-most of his career, though some of the pressure he faced came late in the game with the Cowboys behind and in pass-first mode.
The Cowboys currently have two new starters on the line: Joe Looney, who's filling in at center for Travis Frederick (Guillain-Barre Syndrome), and rookie left guard Connor Williams, who faced off against Pro Bowl-caliber defensive tackle Kawann Short and allowed two sacks.
"He's doing well," Smith said. "He's doing everything that we're asking him to do. Little things here and there we've got to clean up as a group."
Said head coach Jason Garrett on Monday: "We feel like we have the guys who are capable of playing well up front. The new pieces for us right now with Joe Looney taking Travis Frederick's place, looked like he did a pretty good job in the game. Wasn't perfect, but he played a pretty sound game for us.
"Connor Williams, the rookie, obviously it's a challenging task for him Week 1 to go against that defensive front. There were some good things for him. There's some areas in pass protection that wasn't good enough and we'll continue to work with him on that."
The Cowboys signed veteran Xavier Su'a-Filo, a two-year starter in Houston, for guard depth on Tuesday. And the starting group will look to bounce back against a Giants front that Damon Harrison and Dalvin Tomlinson.
"As a group, we're hard on ourselves," Smith said. "We definitely want to be a lot better than that."
