ARLINGTON, Texas — There was a lot of "meat left on the bone" by the Dallas Cowboys in Week 1, per Dak Prescott, despite blowing out the Cleveland Browns in a contest that saw the defense torture Deshaun Watson for four quarters. If that assessment by the All-Pro quarterback is true, and it is, then what happened against the New Orleans Saints was boneless wings — barely nibbled.
The 44-19 rout was actually worse than the final score implies, because the Cowboys were boatraced by Derek Carr, Alvin Kamara and the visitors from The Boot, and for four quarters.
"It's hard to say we were pressing," said Prescott after the second consecutive loss at AT&T Stadium stemming back to the January loss to the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs. "But, obviously, you're trying to play complementary football and your defense is struggling to stop a group, so you want to do your part and then score touchdowns and come back. We weren't able to score touchdowns. I mean, we were able to move the ball up and down the field, but we couldn't score touchdowns."
Prescott was able to connect with CeeDee Lamb for a 65-yard yard touchdown on the third offensive drive of the game, but it turned out to be the only one they'd score all afternoon, as Brandon Aubrey did the rest of the heavy lifting with four field goals on the day.
Two interceptions later, one accountable to a stumble by Jalen Brooks and the other by Prescott witnessing Tyrann Mathieu knife through one route to jump a second one, the Cowboys' quarterback says it wasn't a matter of him pressing as the game went on.
"I can't say that we were pressing, necessarily, going from last week to this week," Prescott explained. "As I said, there's some things that we wanted to get better at. We got better at third down this week, but now it's the red zone. I think if we scored some touchdowns, it makes the defense feel a little bit better and it's a whole different feel within the game for both sides of the ball."
They've now scored only three touchdowns in their first eight quarters of play in 2024.
There were certainly opportunities to punch it in, seeing as Prescott led the offense down the field on extended drives at several points throughout the game and the Cowboys controlled time of possession for the large majority of the game, as evidence, but the Saints' offense was simply more efficient and explosive in not needing a lot of time to land a flurry of haymakers.
It was something the Cowboys' offense simply could not match on Sunday.
Now sitting at 1-1 on the season with reigning NFL MVP Lamar Jackson heading into town in seven days, and with a very capable defense in tow, Prescott says the team will let this one burn for 24 hours, then spend the rest of the week learning from it to try and avoid a three-game home losing streak and a 1-2 record to start the season.
"I mean I talked about how much meat we left on the bone offensively, and that's simply why you can't listen to other people's opinions and then read what you guys write, respectfully," he said. "I mean, yeah, y'all may have put this team on a high [probably] more than we should have been [after Week 1], and now we just simply got to reset. We've got to respond.
"We're not going undefeated, haven't been done in 50 years. Woo. Surprise. So it's about getting back to it and finding a way to respond to put the best team on the field next week."
And, with that, Week 3 awaits.
