It would appear the Dallas Cowboys have let the 2024 season get away from them, but Jerry Jones still feels there’s reason for optimism.
After their most recent loss, the Cowboys’ team owner, president and general manager did not promise any concrete changes but swore, ‘There are better days ahead.’
With their 34-10 loss to the Houston Texans on ‘Monday Night Football’ in Week 11, the Cowboys have lost five straight games to fall to 3-7. They’ve also lost six straight games at home, dating back to last year’s wild-card round defeat at the hands of the Green Bay Packers.
Yet despite how the season has gone so far, Jones didn’t indicate that any major or imminent changes were to come in the near future when he joined Dallas-Fort Worth radio station 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday morning.
Jones has already said he has no plans to make a change at head coach in the middle of the season. After last week’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, he confirmed that the team would stick with Mike McCarthy, at least for the remainder of the season.
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On Tuesday’s radio hit, he also shared that despite Tyler Guyton’s struggles, there are no plans to shake up the left tackle situation or change things up under center.
Cowboys sticking with Cooper Rush
Quarterback Cooper Rush made his second start of the season in the loss to Houston on Monday. Despite what the box score numbers said, his Week 11 performance – 32-of-55 (58.2%) with 354 yards, a touchdown and an interception – showed more areas of concern.
Rush took over as the Cowboys’ quarterback following Dak Prescott’s hamstring injury in the fourth quarter of a Week 9 clash with the Falcons. Since being inserted under center, Rush has had the worst efficiency numbers of any quarterback in the NFL over that same span.
Despite an expected completion percentage of 70.6% – the fifth-highest in the league between Weeks 9-11 per rbdsm.com – his actual completion rate is 57.4, the second-worst in that span. That leaves his completion percentage over expected (CPOE) at -13.2, the only mark below -10.
In addition, Rush is the third-worst quarterback by expected points added (EPA) per play over the last three weeks. Only Joe Flacco (-0.361) and Mac Jones (-0.342) have done less for their team’s scoring success than Rush (-0.287).
Yet despite that, and trading for quarterback Trey Lance before last season, Jones has squashed any discussion of making a change at quarterback. Instead, he gave Rush an extra vote of confidence on his Tuesday appearance on local sports radio.
‘I thought Rush actually had improvement last night from the game before (12-of-23 for 45 yards vs. Philadelphia),’ he said. ‘Frankly, there were times in that ballgame (vs. Houston) that I thought it was really coming to him. We know that we’ve got limited time to work with these quarterbacks at this particular time, and I would look for us to stay with the experience.’
Jones shot down the idea that the lack of playing time for Lance was an indication of a misevaluation of the former first-round pick. Instead, he noted that Lance had improved while continuing to point to Rush’s experience – and Lance’s lack thereof – as the real reason for the decision to stick with the more veteran option.
‘You’ve got to get out there, and you’ve got to play,’ Jones said. ‘We have thought it was just too important for us to have him at rookie quarterback in these last two ballgames because we need to win. (Note: Lance is in his fourth NFL season.)
‘We hadn’t gotten to the point that we were looking to evaluate Trey Lance at all. So that’s where we are.’