ARLINGTON, Texas — The brunt of this Sunday afternoon debacle will be laid at the feet of the Cowboys defense.
And rightfully so. A night-and-day difference between that season opening win over the Browns, and on the road at that, and this before 93,691 folks at AT&T Stadium, no matter what colors they were wearing – Blue and White or Black and Gold, for that matter.
Saints 44, Cowboys 19.
But while the defense will get plenty of blame, do not let the Cowboys' somewhat anemic offense off the hook. And, that's two games in a row, especially when it comes to scoring touchdowns.
Sure, the Cowboys put up 33 points on the erstwhile NFL 2023 No. 1 defense. Big picture, not all that bad, keeping up with their 2023 NFL scoring average of 29.9 points a game.
But the Cowboys got to those 33 points mostly thanks to Pro Bowl kicker Brandon Aubrey making good on all four field-goal attempts, two of those from 50-plus yards.
As for touchdowns, the Cowboys only scored two of those in 12 full possessions against the Browns, discounting two others at the end of the half and end of the game.
Quarterback Dak Prescott and head coach Mike McCarthy agreed. That second half against the Browns was sloppy, especially when it came to third downs, converting just four of 14 opportunities.
Well, rinse and repeat that complaint. While New Orleans was celebrating touchdowns as if this were Mardi Gras, the Cowboys were merely chugging along. Scored one touchdown, and by the grace of Aubrey's continued accuracy, achieved those 19 points with the second year NFL kicker going four-for-four once again. Meaning, he is 8 for 8 to start the season, and in this one converting two more from 50-plus yards (50 and 57).
See, 52 points in two games, averaging 26 points a game. Seems pretty nice since last week only 12 of 32 teams scored more than 26 points in the opening week. But scoring touchdowns is the ticket in this league, and as always saying, the more field goals a team gets the closer it comes to losing.
The Cowboys now in two games have three offensive touchdowns, the other scored on KaVontae Turpin's 60-yard punt return.
Even Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was willing to spread the blame around for the Cowboys now sitting 1-1 heading into next Sunday's game against the Baltimore Ravens. By the way, the 0-2 Ravens, dropping their opener, 27-20, to the Chiefs and going down 26-23 Sunday to the Raiders.
"Well, actually, if you look at the whole picture, there're a lot of things that would concern you," Jones said. "I'm going to give New Orleans a lot of credit for that, but I'm going to say this, without question, on both sides of the ball you could easily see here is what we can do better, and we need to early."
Truer words never spoken. The Cowboys found themselves trailing, 21-6, before scoring their only touchdown in the game with 7:43 left in the second quarter. That on a 65-yard Prescott pass to CeeDee Lamb when he ducked under two potential Saints after catching a relatively short out-pass and racing the rest of the 65-yard way untouched.
But that's it.
And mostly it because the Cowboys went oh-for-3 in the red zone, squandering opportunities with a first-and-10 at the Saints' 15-yard line, first-and-10 at the 14 and a second-and-4 at the 16, turning two of those opportunities into field goals and the third one failing on downs.
"But we want to score touchdowns," Prescott said. "I mean, outside of the big one to CeeDee, get in the red zone three times I guess, right? Oh-for-three in the red zone and you're not going to win games that way, for damn sure. Not against an offense that's rolling like that.
"So we've got to find ways to get in end zone."
And averaging more than 1½ offensive touchdowns a game.
