We’ve all seen devastating Dallas Cowboys losses. Choose your favorite. Maybe the game came to mind as soon as Dez caught it. Maybe it was the Tony Romo bobble. You might be thinking of the 1994 NFC Championship Game. Chances are it was a playoff loss, and we’re all aware that there have been (almost) plenty of those to choose from over the last 30 years.

Of course, when you think about the regular season losses, they’re not the same, but the finals from 2011 to 2013 are up there. Obviously, 44-6 holds an awfully special place in history. But even then, these games were effective playoff games, the losses of which cemented the official end of the season.

It is extremely difficult to find one of the most disappointing losses in the history of the Cowboys franchise that caused so much devastation in the month of October. There’s just too much football to be played for a punch to land so directly before Halloween even arrives. But it somehow feels like we’re here now.

Certainly the Cowboys are still technically and literally alive when it comes to this season and the playoff pursuit. Maybe one day we’ll laugh at how we all overreacted on October 14, 2024. We can only hope (in more ways than one).

Sunday’s loss to the Detroit Lions felt a little different for the Cowboys, but we’ll still do our best. This is our Day After Thoughts discussion, where we use a night’s rest and many cups of coffee to inspire how we feel about the action we just saw.

We will address three ideas in detail.

It gets boring blaming the front office, but that’s squarely and largely on them

The Dallas Cowboys have a lot of problems right now. Choose one. Every one of them. The list is long. But it may be true that the players are not living up to expectations, that the coaches are failing to raise the overall level, and that everything is at a shaky level due to the “work” that the front office has done over time Foundation rests off season. Yes. It can all be true.

The front office infamously and infamously did nothing significant to help the team through roster moves in the offseason. Additionally, they literally delayed paying their superstars, players who fill very expensive positions, until the eleventh hour and as a result paid significantly more (most likely based on NFL trends) than if they had been proactive on those fronts.

To make matters worse, they have seemingly educated fans about the potential of things at every turn and created an environment that is incredibly untenable. You can have your issues with Mike McCarthy, we all do, but sending him into a contract year required drama to put the organization around any loss. It wasn’t a stable decision.

The sins of the off-season cannot be made up for in one fell swoop, especially in the fall months. At this point the bed is made. It remains very frustrating.

There’s no denying that this team needs to make a change if they want to seriously compete

With all that said, serious change could go a long way.

Dak Prescott noted after the game how similar this start felt for the team to 2018. That group fell to 3-4 before their bye week, and chances are good that this group will get there if they get out of their group emerge as their next game is against the big, bad San Francisco 49ers.

It was at this moment six years ago when Dallas sent a future first-round pick to the then-Oakland Raiders in exchange for Amari Cooper. Cooper rocked the offense and the Philadelphia Eagles collapsed and all was well for the Cowboys to not only win the NFC East but also a playoff game for the first time in the Dak Prescott era.

To put it mildly, Cooper saved this season, and obviously we saw how it all played out. But the time is certainly now to provide help somewhere, wide receiver is certainly an option before it’s too late. It would be hard to justify tackling the whole thing with the roster as it is, but perhaps that’s exactly what the Cowboys will do.

Given that the team was in its bye week, it was obvious that now would be the time to think and make a move. We’ll see if they have any intention of doing this.

It is no exaggeration to say that hope is at a real low point compared to recent history

We end our beginning and note that the emotions, the mood, whatever you want to call it, are rather bad for the Cowboys at the moment.

The Detroit Lions are on everyone’s lips and are the focus of the NFL these days. They are the latest team to march through AT&T Stadium and celebrate at the expense of the home team almost from start to finish. The Cowboys are often compared to teams like the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Lakers, Duke, and Alabama, and it’s all because of the huge fan bases that these teams have. The difference between the Cowboys is that each of these teams has climbed their respective mountain at some point in the last 15 years. These fans watch people cheering against their team all the time, but they’ve also touched the other end of the spectrum. If you’re a Cowboys fan who’s around 40 years old or younger, you’ve only seen the negative side of this whole deal.

And things like that are easier to tolerate and endure when you feel like the team is moving in a certain direction. But given the state of things and the way they have unfolded since the playoff loss, it feels like we are lost at sea with no help of any kind.

Honestly, it stinks.