Coming into Monday night, the Dallas Cowboys had not lost six or more home games in a season since 2015 - a historical bookmark that’s been brought up plenty of times here in 2024 due to the common thread of Dallas losing their starting quarterback for the majority of the season both times. The 2015 Cowboys have also been used as a reference point for how this current team feels worse in a lot of ways, most of which were on display in primetime against the Bengals. If you keep sliding past 2015 to find a comparison for this current Cowboys group, it is a multi-decade scroll into futility and brings back memories of an infamous 1993 Leon Lett play that was hardly on any Dallas fans radar for Monday night.
A Cincinnati team with seven of their eight losses coming in one-score games needed a monumental break from Dallas to earn their first such win since week seven. The Bengals got it when a Nick Vigil blocked punt that should have set up the Cowboys to take the lead inside of two minutes to play. turned into new life for the visiting team after Amani Oruwariye touched the ball but did not recover it, leading to a Bengals fresh set of downs.
Just three players later, against a defense that had already more than done its job throughout the night, Ja’Marr Chase was in the end zone for a game-winning 40-yard touchdown. Scoring his second of the night by outracing the entire Cowboys defense down the sideline, the Bengals jumped ahead 27-20.
All the weeks worth of talk about this banged up team somehow finding a way to play complementary football that gave them a chance felt thrown out the window by one special teams' miscue. The defense didn’t have much of a chance to recover and get back on the field to make another stop, much to the the dismay of Micah Parsons, and the offense was left with less than a minute needing a touchdown in the end.
Cincinnati Bengals v Dallas Cowboys Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images
Just two weeks ago, 27 points was not enough for the Bengals to win as they lost in another primetime slot at the Chargers 34-27. The week after that, the Bengals were in yet another shootout loss 44-38 at home versus the Steelers. This time, 27 points was enough to get past a Cowboys team that was starting to dream of a potential playoff berth after a two-game win streak, and in doing so the Bengals evened their record with the Cowboys at 5-8. They also all but evened the playoff probabilities for both teams at zero.
The Bengals had an even more remote chance at making the playoffs than the Cowboys coming into Monday night, but their exciting style of play centered around never giving up on a game thanks to the elite talent of Joe Burrow became a saving grace for this late season Monday Night Football showdown. When paired with the Cowboys own resilience to show fight down the stretch with two wins in four days in the past week against the Commanders and Giants, the potential for this to be a compelling game despite the records was always there. The Cowboys will have one more primetime game on Sunday Night Football in week 16 against the Buccaneers, who are leading the NFC South.
In the end, this game will unfortunately only be compelling to Cowboys fans for all of the wrong reasons once again. It is a humbling loss that should serve as a stark reminder of who this team has truly been for much of the season, no matter who’s been under center. Sure, this type of loss felt inevitable at some point into December to put the final nail in the coffin for playoff hopes, but there is nothing wrong with delaying such a thing for the sake of keeping late-season football intriguing. Now, it is all but a guarantee the Cowboys will play just four more games to conclude this lost season. On paper (or the screen you’re reading this on), the objective for the Cowboys in these remaining games stays the same as young players continue to be given chances to develop. After letting a game slip away on a special teams mishap though, where more injuries to starters like Cooper Beebe and DeMarvion Overshown piled up, even using the scheduled games against the Panthers, Buccaneers, Eagles, and Commanders to make personnel decisions for the future feels tenuous.
Maybe in its simplest form, this game was just a reminder that the factors that decide NFL games are as volatile as any known force in the universe, and expecting the oblong leather ball to bounce any of the same ways it has this season for the Cowboys in the future is probably foolish at best.
It wasn’t as if anyone was ready to anoint the 2024 Dallas Cowboys as anything close to an actual good football team that makes this Bengals loss disappointing. It is the team finding yet another creative, unbelievable, and inexplicable way to lose in front of a national audience to confirm on their own terms that they haven’t been good enough that makes it a harder pill to swallow. Grab some donuts or some Duff beer, because there’s more to get to on how the Cowboys let another home game slip away.
Cincinnati Bengals v Dallas Cowboys Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images
For the first time in three games, the Cowboys did not start with the ball on the game’s opening possession. After doing so against the Commanders and having a field goal try blocked, and scoring a field goal on Thanksgiving against the Giants, Dallas was able to gain better field position by starting the game on defense and forcing their only three and out of the game. The impact of having Trevon Diggs, Jourdan Lewis, and DaRon Bland all together at cornerback for the first time was felt immediately. With the Bengals opting to test Diggs out of this bunch early, #7 was ready on first down with a tackle against Chase on the boundary. After a big open field tackle by Overshown on second down, Diggs was again tested further downfield and came up with the pass breakup that forced a very quick Cincinnati punt. The ensuing punt return would be Kavontae Turpin’s only special teams touch of the night, and he made the most out of gaining 20 yards to give the Cowboys offense their first start at their own 40.
The Cowboys initial script for Cooper Rush and the offense was clean, as they stayed well ahead of the chains and scored in the red zone on fourth and one on a corner route to CeeDee Lamb out of the slot. The scoring play was a fantastic example of the types of calls Mike McCarthy has found in recent weeks to put his offense in much more favorable situations. Having Brandin Cooks back at wide receiver has helped Lamb get more reps out of the slot, but on this touchdown play it was Jalen Tolbert on the outside with Lamb in. Tolbert ran a simple whip route to the first down line to give Rush an easy throw for a first down if needed, which was also open on the play, but from a clean pocket the backup QB in his second career start against the Bengals found Lamb for six.
Unfortunately, the crispness of this drive just became a contrast for how the Cowboys offense struggled for much longer stretches later in the game. The Cowboys’ second drive also reached the red zone but ended on a contested throw inside to Lamb that was intercepted by Geno Stone. Overshown would again help the Cowboys defense get off the field with a fourth-down stop, but yet another trip to the red zone for the Dallas offense only netted a field goal and 10-7 lead. Despite their record, this is not a Bengals team that can be beaten with field goals, as the season-long issue for the Cowboys of not being able to finish drives appeared at the worst time.
Even with a very makeshift offensive line paving the way for Rico Dowdle to have a second straight 100-yard night on the ground, the offense was far too often out of sync. Jake Ferguson was back in the lineup for the first time since the team’s last Monday night home loss to the Texans, but the Cowboys could not find him in the middle of the field like they had been with backups Luke Schoonmaker and even Brevyn Spann-Ford in recent weeks.
After their opening drive touchdown, the Cowboys only other touchdown came on the first possession of the second half. The Cowboys again came out and looked sharp, ending the drive on a signature Cooks corner of the end zone touchdown. For a veteran receiver dealing with injuries that’s had such a hard time running away from defenders this season, Cooks still having a knack for finding space in the condensed red zone area is incredibly valuable. The Cowboys have not nearly been able to bring along players like Jalen Brooks or rookie Ryan Flournoy in this role like expected, making Cooks all the more important. Rico Dowdle’s longest run of 27 yards also came on this touchdown drive, as did a 16-yard pass over the middle to Turpin. The opportunities should have been there for Dallas to continue spreading the ball around and creating run-after-the-catch situations for their receivers against Lou Anarumo’s two-high defenses, but even getting the ball back on an interception immediately following Cooks’ touchdown, they managed just a field goal drive of 69 yards followed by 31 yards on their remaining three possessions combined to end the game.
The special teams play by Vigil and Oruwariye will understandably get most of the attention as the reason Dallas wasted another solid defensive effort from Mike Zimmer’s group, but it should not excuse the way the offense had their fingerprints all over this loss as well. On the same night ESPN’s Troy Aikman said he expects Mike McCarthy to return for another season in 2025 prior to calling his second Cowboys loss of the season, McCarthy as the team’s play-caller left a lot to be desired in a game that will temporarily keep these 2024 Cowboys as the worst record-wise for McCarthy since 2020. That team in his first season finished 6-10, with the Cowboys still having four chances to seek their sixth win this season of course.
New York Giants v Dallas Cowboys Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images
Another interesting note that came from the main ESPN broadcast of this game, for those not watching either the Manningcast or alternate Simpsons universe one, was Aikman pointing out in his conversations with Mike Zimmer ahead of this game that Zimmer revealed Micah Parsons has the freedom to choose where he rushes from anywhere in this defense. For a unit that’s noticeably taken huge leaps and strides all year long, it is great to have a concrete example like this of how far the team’s overall understanding of Zimmer’s scheme has come. For Parsons to have this freedom to move around while also trusting his teammates to be sound in their other gap assignments and not allow big plays is a huge upgrade over where the Dallas defense has been when transitioning coordinators in the past.
Veteran defensive backs finding the fountain of youth and playing well against younger, faster, and better receivers for years to come has also been a hallmark of a Zimmer defense, and the Cowboys have a clear example of this in Jourdan Lewis. Lewis was in phase with both Chase and Tee Higgins a number of times in this game, and has been monumental in allowing Dallas to not feel the need to throw rookies like Caelen Carson into the fire as much early on.
Eric Kendricks has also turned back the clock at middle linebacker for the Cowboys, helping make the position group a very surprising strength not just because of himself but also Overshown and Marist Liufau. If Overshown’s injury is as bad as the Cowboys fear, the silver lining may be that they’ll continue to get a deeper look at the rookie Liufau who had 1.5 sacks against the Bengals. It was Liufau’s third-down sack that led to Nick Vigil’s punt block that should have swung this game into a potentially different outcome entirely.
The Cowboys were slightly more cautious with when to bring pressure against Burrow in this game, limiting the man coverage, one-on-one looks for a receiver like Chase to break one tackle and go the distance. When they did bring pressure it was effective, although a major turning point in the game was Joe Burrow’s ability to escape four-man rushes and extend plays while still looking downfield. Compared to Rush’s struggles in this area, with some of his worst throws of the night coming on the run, the Bengals milked every possible drop of the QB advantage everyone knew they had in this game to come out on top by a touchdown.
For all of the attention the Bengals’ record in these types of games got prior to kickoff, half of the Cowboys losses on the season are by one possession as well. Typically this would point well to the fight they’ve shown despite most of these games not going their way and the division being practically out of reach from the start, but after a loss on a miscue like this it’s understandably harder to compliment things like just effort and fight. It is time for the full reality of what this 2024 Cowboys team could have been, and instead what they are now at 5-8, to set in after yet another AT&T Stadium loss.