The Dallas Cowboys decided to open the roof at AT&T Stadium for a game for the first time in more than two years.
After doing so, two large pieces of sheet metal fell off the roof. One landed on the field, narrowly missing several bystanders, while the other got stuck in the rafters and needed to be bolted down by staff to ensure it wouldn’t fall during the game.
The entire sequence represented a microcosm of the Cowboys’ 2024 season.
Dallas dropped to 3-7 after the sheet metal incident. They were crushed 34-10 by the Houston Texans on ‘Monday Night Football,’ falling to 0-5 at home and becoming the first NFL team ever to trail by at least 20 points in six consecutive home games.
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Despite this, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is still trying not to panic. He acknowledged after Monday’s defeat that the organization ‘didn’t anticipate’ the team’s poor performance this season but that he has been through worse during his 35 years as the team’s owner.
‘We won one game my first year,’ Jones told reporters, per ESPN. ‘One. And so, have we had rough seasons? Yes. Yeah, I’ve been around. Certainly, we have. And we’ve had other tough years. And this one, we didn’t anticipate the record. And the way we’re playing right now, we wouldn’t have anticipated that. But, not, this isn’t – y’all have heard me tell these old stories until you’re sick – but not, you stay in this league long enough, you’ll have times like this.’
Even so, the Cowboys entered the 2024 NFL season expecting to contend for a Super Bowl. The team was coming off three consecutive 12-5 seasons and was hoping it could finally mount a deep postseason run under Mike McCarthy’s leadership.
Instead, little has gone right for Dallas. The team’s offseason moves – or lack thereof – have been heavily scrutinized. The Cowboys have sported the NFL’s worst rushing offense after making Ezekiel Elliott and Dalvin Cook its marquee running back additions. Meanwhile, the team’s plan to trust two rookie offensive linemen as replacements for Tyron Smith and Tyler Biadasz hasn’t been as smooth a transition as Dallas hoped.
Add in Dak Prescott’s season-ending hamstring injury in Week 9 and the defense’s major regression after Dan Quinn’s departure, and things look bleak for the Cowboys. Some believe McCarthy, whose contract ends after the season, won’t return in 2025.
Nonetheless, Jones has been adamant about not firing coaches in-season. On Monday he came to McCarthy’s defense, as he often has throughout Dallas’ 3-7 start to the season.
‘That losing the team stuff, that’s so overblown,’ Jones said when asked if the players still believe in McCarthy. ‘These guys are so, first of all, they’re natural competitors. Secondly, they’re so proud of the fact that they are professional and disappointed in maybe the way they executed the play, but that’s not anything that’s brother or first cousin to give up. … Everybody’s certainly disappointed, but that’s a big difference in not knowing that you got to put the foot in front of the other to go.’
It isn’t clear when Jones’ patience might run out, but McCarthy isn’t thinking about that. Nor is he thinking about treating the season like a lost one and giving players like Trey Lance an opportunity to develop on the field, results be damned.
McCarthy wants to find ways to win over Dallas’ final seven games of the 2024 NFL season.
‘This is it, man,’ McCarthy said during his postgame news conference. ‘We’ve got seven losses. We gotta go. Backs against the wall. We gotta fight, claw, scratch. We gotta do everything we can to go win the next game. That’s where my mind’s at. That’s the way I wanna coach and that’s the expectation. We gotta win. We deserve to win. We deserve the opportunity to win and that’s about putting the best people out there. Right now they’re young. Those guys, our young guys are getting a lot of experience.
‘But we need to do whatever the hell we need to do to win.’