The Dallas Cowboys continued their wayward 2025 campaign with another close, high-scoring game on Sunday afternoon, losing on the road, 30-27, to the Carolina Panthers. We shouldn't undersell the Panthers, who are 3-3 with a few solid wins, but this was another ghastly performance from the Cowboys defense.
The primary weapon of choice for Carolina? Top running back Rico Dowdle, who compiled 30 carries for 183 yards, averaging 6.1 yards per touch. He also led the Panthers with 54 receiving yards on four catches, scoring a touchdown.
Dowdle has put together two straight weeks of pure electricity for the Panthers. He notched a combined 234 yards and a touchdown against the Dolphins in Week 5 — another three-point Carolina victory. He's up to 422 rushing yards on the season, almost all stemming from these two starts. How Carolina didn't put him at the front of the line to begin the season is becoming more and more of a mystery.
This had to sting especially hard for Cowboys fans, who saw Dowdle break out in Dallas last season after four years of backup work in the shadows. It felt like Dallas stumbled backward into the optimal Tony Pollard replacement, only for Jerry Jones to ignore him in free agency and replace him with a change-of-pace, platoon runner in Javonte Williams.
Rico Dowdle makes Cowboys regret free agency snub
Dowdle put up a combined 1,328 yards and five touchdowns in 17 appearances (15 starts) for the Cowboys last season, averaging a healthy 4.6 yards per carry. He was, for all intents and purposes, the bell cow RB Dallas was missing after Pollard's departure. And yet, the Cowboys didn't re-sign him.
It's not like Dowdle received a huge paycheck in free agency either. The Panthers paid him $2.75 million to essentially serve as a backup in the NFL's deepest RB room. It took a few weeks for Dowdle to climb the ladder and break out as Carolina's top back, but man, Dallas snubbing Dowdle — and paying Javonte Williams more money, $3 million, after a considerably less productive 2024 campaign — just looks bad. It's a classic Jerry Jones unforced error.
Dowdle has essentially put together the two best RB performances of the 2025 season to date. In back-to-back weeks. Is this sustainable? Probably not, if we abide by the laws of math and statistics. Things tend to regress to the mean. Dowdle is not going to average 200 yards per game for the remainder of the season. But, he can put up 100-plus yards per game and lead Carolina to a more competitive standing in the NFC South? Absolutely. The Falcons aren't exactly a strong No. 2 in the division.
Meanwhile, the Cowboys fell to 2-3-1 with Sunday's loss, which is probably the perfect record for this team. Dallas can hang with any opponent. The offense rocks. Williams, to his credit, is feasting in the red zone. Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens generate plenty of explosive plays over the middle of the field. But the defense is just as bad. Dallas has allowed fewer than 30 points just twice in six weeks — all the way back in Week 1, in a rain delayed loss to the Eagles, and in Week 5 against the still-winless Jets.
It's hard not to wonder how dynamic Dallas' offense might look with Dowdle tearing it up at all levels, but hey. You gotta let Jerry Jones cook when it comes to building out his roster (read with sarcasm). After replacing Tony Pollard with past-prime Ezekiel Elliott and replacing Rico Dowdle with Javonte Williams, it's clear Jones has zero eye for running back evaluation.
There's a nonzero chance the Panthers, currently undefeated at home, finish the season with a better record than the Cowboys. That would be the ultimate embarrassment for Dallas, and the ultimate revenge for Dowdle.