3 lessons we learned (again) from the Cowboys Week 3 loss to the Ravens

Another week and it's another bad loss for the Dallas Cowboys. This time they fell to the Baltimore Raves, 28-25, in a game that looks much closer on paper. All the things we usually attach to Cowboys losses showed up again in Week 3 — lackluster offensive line play, no running game, an inability to stop the run and so on.

One area in which Dallas has improved since Week 1 is penalties. Against Cleveland in the season opener, Dallas had 11 penalties. The last two weeks against New Orleans and Baltimore they’ve had 10 combined. So, while the Cowboys have lost two in a row, they have cleaned up at least one bad habit. Now, let’s take a look at what lessons were drilled into our skulls (once again) about America’s Team.

The Cowboys are who we thought they were

Well, Dallas proved once again on Sunday that they are who they are. And what that is, is a team that plays great when ahead of an opponent and there is little to no adversity or resistance involved like in Week 1 against the Browns. Once these Cowboys come up against teams who can push them around and dictate the level of physicality in a contest, then it’s lights out.

Dallas faced resistance and adversity early against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday and quickly fell behind 14-3 at home with the score being 21-6 by halftime. While the Cowboys did get back in this one scoring 19 points in the fourth quarter, ultimately, they still came up short losing by three.

"They can take some of what they showed out at the end of that game and we can go forward with that," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. "That's at least some [good] taste in your mouth. We're sad, obviously, for our fans that we've lost two in a row here at home, but if things work like you'd like to have them, they can take some of what we had at the end there and bottle it up and go forward with it."

"No, I'm very disappointed that we got beat today," Jones explained. "Very disappointed. And you can't in any way sugarcoat the fact that we got beat, and there were parts of the way we got beat that were really areas we've got to get a lot better in. … We've got a lot of work to do, but we've got time to do that kind of work and we've got a short week this week, but we've got to start. That was disappointing … When you look at the whole picture, we got outplayed today."

Dak Prescott or bust in Big D

Another bad recipe for winning is putting everything on the shoulders of the NFL’s first $60 million man, Dak Prescott. Against the Ravens, Prescott attempted 51 passes. The Cowboys trailed by more points last week against the New Orleans Saints and Dak threw 39 passes in that game.

The fact that Dallas has little to no running game has kicked them in the butt in consecutive games. No one believes in the effectiveness of your play-action game if you can’t establish the run. The two go hand in hand. Compound that with falling behind by multiple scores early in these games and now you become one dimensional and defenses know what’s coming.

Prescott is a good quarterback who’s had great moments but hasn’t consistently played at that level. Asking to be Peyton Manning or Tom Brady isn’t fair to Dak or the team. When the Cowboys had a more balanced attack a few years ago when Ezekiel Elliott was still in his prime Prescott wasn’t asked to do everything. And the only real consistent weapon Prescott has currently is CeeDee Lamb and that clearly is not enough.

The inability to run or stop the run is a recipe for disaster

Whenever you’re deficient in the running game whether on offense or defense, you’re in trouble. If you cannot run the ball effectively on offense and struggle to stop it defensively, you end up looking like the Cowboys. Many teams have trouble with one or the other but when you can’t do either you’re in for a long disappointing season.

Although Dallas fell behind early, 16 rushing attempts just won’t get the job done. The Ravens essentially had nothing to worry about other than Dak dropping back to pass. Yes, the NFL is a passing league now, but you still need to be able to run the ball in certain situations and the Cowboys are lacking big time in that category.

Defensively Dallas has been just as bad at stopping the run. The Ravens averaged 6.1 yards per carry against the Cowboys, on Sunday. Baltimore rushed for 254 yards as a team with Derrick Henry gaining 151 yards himself with two touchdowns. Lamar Jackson added another 87 yards on the ground as well.

To think, the Cowboys had the opportunity to sign Henry in free agency and he was actually open to the idea. Of course, Jones has his reasons (or excuses) for not even making a move in Henry’s direction. But you’ve got to think that figuring out a way to get Henry in would’ve improved this horrid running game by leaps and bounds.

"We couldn't afford Derrick Henry," Jones said, laughing when asked "why not?" "I don't know. Why can't you buy a mansion when you live in a different kind of house? We couldn't afford it. We can't make that all fit. That's as simple as that."

"I wouldn't direct the running game and lack thereof or where we've been over the last three games to any one running back at all, because it takes some offensive linemen to blow them out of there; it takes a passing game to keep them honest in the running game. It takes a lot of things to make that work,” Jones explained.