ARLINGTON, Texas – Another loss at AT&T Stadium continues a baffling trend for this year's Cowboys – they have now dropped to 3-4 at home, while boasting a 5-0 mark on the road.
Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones had a logical enough response when asked to explain the anomaly.
"We played a couple of pretty good teams the last two times in Philadelphia and Arizona, as the standings go this year," he said.
He's not wrong. The Cardinals, who downed Dallas, 28-17, are currently tied with New England for the best record in football at 9-2, and the Eagles' Thanksgiving win in Dallas improved them to 9-3. The 49ers, who opened the season with a win here, are fighting for wildcard positioning.
Aside from a prime time loss to woeful Washington, the Cowboys' home losses have come to some the NFL's better clubs this season.
"Some of the home games are against very good teams," said Tony Romo. "That is usually a good analysis of that sometimes."
That's not a universal opinion of the Cowboys' fortunes, however. While some of their road games have come against unimpressive competition, like Tennessee and Jacksonville, the Cowboys can also point to their best win of the season on the road – a 30-23 win against Seattle at CenturyLink Field.
"I don't know what it is about us on the road, but we focus way more on the road," said Jeremy Mincey. "We've just got to continue to keep that same mentality and keep winning, even though we lost today."
On the whole, Mincey didn't sound impressed with the crowd's effort Thursday. The attendance seemed to largely favor the Cowboys, but the early deficit and the lopsided nature of the loss didn't make for much of a homefield advantage.
"It was pretty quiet, man. It was pretty quiet. I know we can do better," Mincey said. "This is the Dallas Cowboys, man. This is the Dallas Cowboys, and they've got to take pride if they're a Cowboy fan they've got to take pride at representing the Cowboys."
Jones and several other players didn't seem to agree with Mincey's assessment. The Cowboys' paid attendance was 91,379 on the afternoon, but the Eagles led 14-0 with 4:08 remaining in the first quarter – and the visitors hardly looked back.
"I was excited about it being Thanksgiving, excited about the makeup of the crowd, almost 100 percent Cowboys fans, good and loud, and they never got to get in it," Jones said. "Because again, we just couldn't respond after Philadelphia did so well in the initial drives."
Fortunately for the Cowboys' current trends, they have plenty more road tests to come. Dallas will play three of its final four games on the road, starting with next week's trip to Chicago – followed by an away rematch against Philadelphia.[embeddedad0]
"We've got to see Philly in two weeks, and I promise you it will be a different game," Mincey said. "But right now we'll just focus on Chicago – on to the next. You've got to have a short term memory, man, and focus on the goal ahead."
