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Todd Archer, ESPN Staff Writer
ARLINGTON, Texas — As much as his time as owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys has been about winning three Super Bowls in the 1990s, Jerry Jones has had down times, too.
“We won one game my first year,” Jones said after the Cowboys’ 34-10 loss to the Houston Texans that dropped Dallas to 3-7 on the year. “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.”
The 1989 Cowboys, however, were not considered one of the best teams in the NFC at the start of that season. Neither were the teams that finished 5-11 three straight years from 2000-02. In 2010, Jones made the only in-season coaching change of his tenure, replacing Wade Phillips with Jason Garrett after a 1-7 start to the season. In 2015, the Cowboys finished 4-12.
At 3-7, the Cowboys are projected to have a top-10 pick in next year’s draft. With Mike McCarthy in the final year of his contract, there could be a new coaching staff in 2025, but Jones believes the players still believe in McCarthy.
“That losing the team stuff, that’s so overblown,” Jones said. “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.”
For the first time since 1989, the Cowboys have lost their first five home games of a season. They have been outscored by 118 points, the third-highest total through five home games in the Super Bowl era.
The five-game losing streak is the longest since the Cowboys lost seven in a row in 2015. It ties the longest losing streak McCarthy has had as coach. In 2008, the Green Bay Packers lost five in a row on their way to a 6-10 finish.
“Explain it? I think it’s very frustrating. It’s frustrating for everybody. Frustrating for the players, frustrating for the coaches. I know it’s disappointing for the fans,” he said. “But we just, we have a lot of moving parts going on, and we just have to be cleaner and more detailed in certain spots. We’re not playing well enough, not executing well enough, coaching well enough to overcome some of the mistakes we’re making in critical times of the game.”
On their first drive Monday, the Cowboys attempted their second fake punt in their last three games and Bryan Anger’s pass to Juanyeh Thomas fell 5 yards short of gaining a first down.
“They won the chess match there,” McCarthy said. “That was a poor call by us.”
Trailing, 20-10, in the third quarter, McCarthy passed on a short field goal attempt from Brandon Aubrey to go for a fourth-and-2 from the Houston 8, and Cooper Rush’s pass fell incomplete.
“You can’t have it both ways,” McCarthy said. “We’re trying to play it exactly right, managing the game, 14-play drives … We needed seven (points) there.”
The next time the Cowboys had the ball, Rush fumbled on a sack that rookie left tackle Tyler Guyton recovered but subsequently fumbled. Texans defensive end Derek Barnett, who sacked Rush, picked up the loose ball and ran 28 yards for the score.
“We’re not teaching (offensive) linemen to carry the ball,” McCarthy said. “That’s twice now. That’s obviously a big play in the game. We need to fall on the ball.”
Guyton suffered a shoulder injury on the play and did not return. Two series later, the Cowboys lost right guard Zack Martin and left guard Tyler Smith to ankle injuries and neither returned. In the first half, tight end Jake Ferguson was forced out of the game with a concussion.
Quarterback Dak Prescott, who was placed on injured reserve Monday following his hamstring surgery last week, watched the game from the coaches’ booth.
“I feel in times of adversity, the confirmation comes into what you know from your past experiences but also just trust the people in the room, the people that are doing the work. And I do,” McCarthy said. “I believe in this locker room. Our leadership, most of it has been injured. There is good coming out of this. You don’t see it because we’re not winning games but there’s young men that are getting an opportunity to do more. And I do believe that will pay forward. It needs to hurry the hell up because we need it in six days. But this is just the reality of what we’re going through. I do believe because not only what they do for the organization but the energy and the effort they give me. I have every reason to believe that we can play better.”
The Cowboys play at the Washington Commanders next week, followed by a Thanksgiving meeting against the New York Giants.
The Cowboys currently have just one game left against a team with a worse record than their own (the Giants).
“This is it, man,” McCarthy said. “We’ve got seven losses. We gotta go. Backs against the wall. Gotta fight, claw, scratch. Gotta do everything we can to go win the next game. That’s where my mind’s at. That’s the way we 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.”