The Dallas Cowboys were 13-point road favorites against the Arizona Cardinals -- and why wouldn't they be? Not only was the home team pegged as one of the NFL's bottom-feeders coming into the 2023 season, but starting 0-2 pushed Arizona's losing streak to nine games dating back to the 2022 campaign. Meanwhile, the Cowboys had beaten the Giants and Jets by a combined score of 70-10.
Easy Cowboys win in the desert, right? Nope.
Not at all, in fact.
The Cardinals ran amok against the Cowboys early, scoring on all five of their drives in the first half. Arizona's defense then played bend-don't-break perfectly, limiting Dallas to field goals and forcing a key turnover late in the fourth quarter to ice the game, winning 28-16.
It's an embarrassment for Dallas to not just lose, but lose that badly in that spot. And someone needs to take some blame for that loss. We have a good idea as to who, namely these three Cowboys.
Cowboys to blame for Cardinals loss, No. 3: Dak Prescott
The final box score line for Dak Prescott, all things considered, doesn't look too bad. If you removed the final score and saw that the Cowboys quarterback went 25-of-40 for 249 yards with one touchdown, one pick and 24 rushing yards, you'd probably have thought it was another fine day dominated by the defense.
That, however, was not the case for Dak.
Routinely throughout this game in Glendale, Prescott was missing throws. To make matters worse, it seemed as if the most crucial plays to be made in the game, whether that was on key third downs or in the red zone, the throws weren't remotely where they needed to be, or were poorly timed.
The cherry on top was the fourth-quarter interception that ultimately sealed the loss for Dallas. Prescott wasn't pressured too heavily, but still attempted to force a throw into the back of the end zone. Instead, one of the two defenders between the quarterback and intended target jumped up and picked it off.
Prescott's turnover woes from the 2022 season were well documented, but he'd been clean through the first two weeks of the season. That changed on Sunday at the worst moment. However, that game-defining interception was just a snapshot of an overall poor day from QB1. The Cowboys need him to make a quick pivot from this performance if they want to avoid further embarrassments after Week 3.
Cowboys to blame for Cardinals loss, No. 2: Mike McCarthy
When we talk about the shortcomings of Dallas head coach Mike McCarthy, there are a number of areas that deserve consideration.
For one, the new play-caller for the offense looked like he designed a poor gameplan. Yes, Dak Prescott didn't help matters with the quarterback's individual performance, but it seemed as if the Cowboys had a far too vanilla approach to the offense in this matchup and didn't have anywhere to pivot when they fell behind.
Another reason to point the finger at McCarthy would be the hapless overall effort that the team showed. This didn't look like a team that was fraudulent with their dominance in the first two weeks. Instead, it looked like a team that was not up for a bottom-tier opponent and, as such, appeared unprepared on the field.
Somewhat related to that but also the biggest reason to blame Mike McCarthy for the loss was the penalties. It was sloppy, sloppy football from the Cowboys in every aspect. Whether it was a special teams penalty getting a nice punt return called back, holds negating nice gains, or bad defensive positioning giving up big penalty yardage, Dallas couldn't get out of their own way.
The Cowboys had just 11 total penalties from the first two weeks of the 2023 season. In the Week 3 loss to the Cardinals, they had had 13 penalties for a total of 107 yards. That comes down to discipline and coaching, which is the ball that McCarthy has put in his own court. And on Sunday, he and his ball got run off that court.
Cowboys to blame for Cardinals loss, No. 1: The Back Seven
When Trevon Diggs tore his ACL in practice leading into Week 3, there were people who surmised that the pass defense could take a step back. And admittedly, Dallas did commit some costly errors in coverage in this game. However, the back seven is taking blame here not just for their work in the passing game, but for their complete haplessness against the run.
The Cowboys gave up 7.5 yards per play in this game. Credit to Arizona, they did an overall solid job of keeping Micah Parsons and Demarcus Lawrence at least somewhat limited. But on top of that, the group behind the defensive front was caught out of possession or fooled consistently. That's why Josh Dobbs averaged 7.7 yards per pass (dwarfing Dallas' own average of 5.5) and also averaged 7.4 yards per carry.
In fact, the Dallas defense gave up 184 rushing yards in the first half of this game to the Cardinals. That was the most that a Cowboys defense has given up in one half in over 30 years, since 1991 to be exact. That's pretty emblematic of the effort that we saw on the field in Arizona.
For a group that was deservedly getting tons of flowers for their performance over the first two weeks of the 2023 season, they didn't deliver against an offense playing without Kyler Murray, without any top-tier playmakers, and with an average-at-best offensive line. That's not going to get it done and that was a poor, poor effort from the back seven both in coverage and against the run.
