With Cowboys in disarray, the search for a scapegoat begins

The circus that is the Dallas Cowboys never fully subsides, in times good and bad. But nothing does headlines like the bad. And boy, oh boy, did the Cowboys have a discouraging opening week of the new season.

It’s one thing to lose. Nobody likes that, even if it’s in a valiant effort. And to be sure, the Cowboys were hardly blown out by the Panthers. They had a chance to tie the game in the waning minutes. What makes the loss so hard to take is that it enforced all the perceived weaknesses of the team going into the season. Yes, technically, the Cowboys had a chance to tie late in the game, but the prospect of getting one more touchdown seemed so improbable they might as well have needed five. The final drive was snuffed out with relative ease.

The best you could say about the Dallas offense is at least it displayed faint signs of life in the second half. Because in the first, you’d be forgiven for wondering whether it was trying at all.

The Cowboys were 0-for-5 on third down in the first half. Knowing that, perhaps it’s unsurprising that their offense didn’t cross midfield until the second half. Still, one would assume a capable offense might produce a random splash play to get the ball in plus territory. In the first half, Dallas couldn’t even manage that.

Of course, among the problems with the Cowboys is their general inability to produce big plays. They had one gain of 20 yards or more in Sunday’s loss to the Panthers, and it was exactly 20 yards. This is a central point to the ongoing re-evaluation of Dak Prescott and whether he is in fact the franchise quarterback his rookie season seemed to suggest he was.

In eight of his last 11 starts, Prescott has passed for fewer than 200 yards. In the last three, including Sunday, the Cowboys have had the services of Ezekiel Elliott in the backfield, so it’s not even possible to say the Dallas offense has been hampered by the absence of one of its stars. A subpar sophomore season is forgivable — even expected. But the erratic performance isn’t supposed to extend into Year 3.

You can’t lay all of this on Prescott, though. The vaunted Cowboys offensive line played poorly in defeat, allowing its quarterback to get sacked six times. In run blocking, too, it missed what should have been big plays. It’s clear the receiving corps is deficient and being mocked by the top wideout who was let go in the offseason, even if he hasn’t yet found a new team himself.