FRISCO, Texas — Not unlike the start to the 2023 season, the Dallas Cowboys find themselves again getting off to slow starts on offense, only this time it's also being suffered by the defense doing the same, and neither side of the ball is making things any easier for the other — though it's the offense that entered training camp believing Year 2 under Mike McCarthy's playcalling would yield more comfort and a faster start.
Prior to the gasoline finally meeting the spark in all of the cylinders in the fourth quarter of their latest loss, when they scored three touchdowns in the final nine minutes of the contest and narrowly missed stealing victory from the jaws of defeat, the output has been less than pedestrian.
"Yeah, I think that's something we also need to look at," said Pro Bowl tight end Jake Ferguson, who returned from a one-game absence due to a sprained MCL. "This is a league where the margin for error is small and you can't give up that much time. Time is precious and you can't start slow. You can't end slow.
"So I think we just got to put together a whole game."
The first 11 quarters of football to begin the 2024 season saw the offense, as one example, score only three touchdowns, with All-Pro kicker Brandon Aubrey doing much of the heavy lifting, and with Pro Bowl returner KaVontae Turpin adding a special teams touchdown as well.
Special teams has been exceptional for the Cowboys through the 1-2 stretch, but that's the only phase of the game you could justifiably give those roses to.
From penalties to issues protecting the ball to miscommunication on routes, the issues are front and center.
"Things [work] together," Ferguson said. "The whole complementary football thing is to try to get off those better starts. I think where it starts is doing my job, my 1/11th. I can control what we do on the offense.
"So I think it's not always going to be, offense is kicking ass and defense is kicking ass. Sometimes, someone's going to have to hold up one end a little bit harder."
Ferguson points at the Ravens game as a prime example of this.
"I think maybe there was an opportunity for us to do that [against Baltimore], and then [the Cowboys' defense] came out in the end and made a couple stops and, if we don't start slow on offense, maybe we don't have to come back and maybe we're already up. I think it just needs to be complementary, and I know I need to be better. I had a false start early and it kind of slowed that drive down, stopped it, and I need to be better on my part."
The prevailing message throughout the locker room this week, no matter who you ask, remains keying in on "details" (per Jourdan Lewis) and getting back to attacking those details like a professional (per DeMarcus Lawrence, Dak Prescott, Trevon Diggs, Micah Parsons and CJ Goodwin, etc.).
You can add Turpin to that list heading into the Thursday night bout against the New York Giants.
"I would just say everybody's got to come up here and just be on their p's and q's," said Turpin. "Everybody gotta be on top of everything, man. … Everybody just got to be locked in and just come out here and just be a professional."
But for anyone wondering if there are fractures forming in the locker room, don't. Of the issues that need to be repaired going forward, solidarity isn't one of them — sideline outbursts being viewed and treated as competitors challenging brethren and themselves to be better during a two-game slide at home.
"No, no, no," Turpin explained. "We are all together. Everybody knows everybody loves each other in the locker room. It just feels like, man, everybody just got to be locked in. I feel like everybody ain't on the same page right now, and I feel like once we all get on the same page, we're going to be back clicking."
As it stands, it's still September, and that does technically mean there's a lot of football left to be sorted out before the eventual story of this year's Cowboys will be told.
But it's also true that it won't be early forever, and their Week 4 matchup suddenly feels like a now-or-never scenario to avoid a, well, slow start, to a pivotal season that would see them land at 1-3 before October rolls around.
"I think it's early, right? It's three games," said Ferguson. "But is it one of those things where, in a football season, it can get late pretty quick."
Yes, because it's only early … until it's too late.
