A handful of stats reveal the totality of the Cowboys’ failure against the Bills

After a heartbreaking loss like the Dallas Cowboys experienced at the hands of the Buffalo Bills on Sunday afternoon, teams occasionally want to just burn the film or whatever the digital equivalent is.

However, that hardly seems suitable in this case.There were so many flagrant errors and failures that this one requires further investigation. The Cowboys secured a postseason position despite unfavorable outcomes elsewhere in the league, which might hurt them in their quest to avoid playing as a wild card team.

That appears to be inevitable, and to make matters worse, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who recently witnessed Baker Mayfield of the Green Bay Packers post a perfect passer rating, appear to be their most likely first-round opponent.

As you can anticipate, the game’s statistics were really bad, but before we go on, let’s talk about how a few particular errors also contributed to this suffering.

But as the always astute Cowboys Stats points out, a loss would have probably resulted from their general awful play. Here are a few of the unappealing figures.

Pounding the ball and Cooking

James Cook, who had an incredible game, did the most of the damage as the Bills racked up a fairly astounding 266 yards on the ground. In the first quarter, he was tackled close to the line of scrimmage but steadfastly refused to fall, as seen by his 179 yards of contribution. The Dallas defenders rushed to the ball, but Cook persisted in moving forward to gain a first down despite appearing to outnumber the Buffalo players who joined the rush. It was an annoying situation to see.

His biggest run of the game was only 24 yards, with one other run going for 20. Those yards he gained were also not the result of one or two breakaways. With some outstanding blocking to cover opening gaps, he primarily completed the task in smaller bursts, and his perseverance allowed him to convert what should have been quick gains into substantial pickups.

He was also their most productive receiver, gaining 42 yards from only two receptions. He was as close to a one-man wrecking crew as you can find in the NFL, but it needs a team. Dan Quinn was a complete failure in this regard.The coaching staff in Buffalo discovered a serious flaw in the Cowboys’ defense.They’ve struggled against the run in the past, and the new offensive play-caller for the Bills, Joe Brady, realized how helpless the defense was to stop the run and correctly continued to go to the well. Buffalo was running for a respectable but not particularly impressive 122.4 yards per game going into the contest.

They gave Dallas a total beating. In situations when the opposition is compelled to throw the ball, Quinn’s pass-stopping plan is meant to support a high-scoring offense. Josh Allen, who only completed seven of fifteen throws for 94 yards, made light of his lack of playing time following the game. However, a couple of those were game-changing plays, such as Stephon Diggs’ one-handed catch and Cook’s touchdown reception. Quinn and his defense just did not have any solutions for the run, thus they did not even need to pass the ball.

Not so MVP

Conversely, Dak Prescott had a terrible performance. Zack Martin’s injury throughout the game did not help matters either as it increased the pressure on Prescott and resulted in three sacks. But he was wildly inaccurate. He would make a late interception, but he would frequently come dangerously close to being picked on poor throws. That may have been far worse. He fired three consecutive incomplete passes on one series, which just served to highlight how off-target he was.

It was really atypical for him. Although he finished with 21 completions on 34 attempts for 134 yards, many of those came on a fourth-quarter garbage time drive during which Mike McCarthy’s decision to keep his starters in was quite dubious. Throughout the entire game, Prescott and CeeDee Lamb took a lot of hits. It was just not worth the danger of harm to score a touchdown when it made no difference to the final score. In this one, the coaching staff as a whole just performed appallingly. The Cowboys’ postseason adventure will be short if they don’t improve quickly.

Penalties killed them

For 48 yards, the Cowboys were penalized five times. Actually, that is superior than what they often do.

However, the Bills were only struck once for fifteen. Additionally, the Cowboys’ flags were cruel, either putting an end to drives or preserving them for Buffalo. Sam Williams was called for roughing the kicker close to the conclusion of the first quarter, which dealt the Bills a serious blow and gave them a 14-point advantage. If he hadn’t stepped off his feet and fell on punter Sam Martin, Dallas may have recovered a touchdown and the game’s entire dynamic might have been altered. Rather, it appeared as though they were in a state of desperation, as Prescott pressed and made many errors.
It also resulted in the Cowboys abandoning their run game, which is precisely what they aim to do to their opponents. This third Dallas disaster of 2023 was made possible by this rewriting of the screenplay.

All three of those factors contributed to what was undoubtedly the worst game since the Cowboys’ bye. The coaching staff will now need to start over in order to address these problems. Additionally, Dallas is just not as effective on the road this year as it was in this game. The final opportunity to demonstrate that they can defeat a strong team away from AT&T Stadium is when they go to the Miami Dolphins (10-4) in the next game. They really need to accomplish that since they will most likely need to become into road warriors in order to make it to the playoffs.

Given the teams’ December schedule, it was not shocking that they would withdraw at least one. We had no idea that the Bills would treat them so horribly. They must now recover in the same manner as they did after suffering a similar fate at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers. That is essential because, should Dallas manage to avoid going one-and-done, the 49ers will almost certainly be a playoff opponent.