Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Nolan had to excuse himself from a Zoom call Monday, this after . . . getting Tabasco sauce in his eye? Really?
“You can’t make it up with this team,” Zach Gelb said in disbelief. “This team stinks. They’re horrible. They’re terrible. They’re a laughingstock.”
Sure, a Tabasco mishap can happen to anyone, but of course it happened to a member of the Cowboys (2-5), who rank last in the league in scoring defense (34.7 points per game allowed) and have scored just one touchdown in two games without Dak Prescott.
“This coaching staff is abysmal,” Gelb said. “The players quit on the last coaching staff last year when they allowed 26 and 24 unanswered to the Bills and the Bears. You get a new coach, you think it would be a fresh start. Sure, they got smothered with injuries this year, [but] you still got talent. You still have some names on this team. You should be able to compete with Washington’s football team, and you can’t even compete with them.”
Gelb couldn’t believe that the Cowboys – the offensive linemen, in particular – didn’t even stick up for their concussed quarterback Andy Dalton, who took a brutal hit from Washington’s Jon Bostic in a 25-3 loss Sunday.
“They were nowhere to be found yesterday,” Gelb said. “Your quarterback takes a vicious hit from Bostic. No one went to go pick a fight with Washington’s football team. Why? Because the Cowboys are dead. They are done. They are finished. They are a terrible football team. It’s one thing to be a terrible football team, and [it’s] another thing to be a terrible football team with players that just don’t even show up and they just take a paycheck. They’re not trying in Dallas. How could you say they’re trying? They got ran over by Washington, and no one’s going to come to the defense of Andy Dalton?”
Dalton signed a one-year deal with Dallas in March. He was making his second start in place of Dak Prescott, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury against the Giants in Week 5.
“I don’t care if he’s a backup quarterback,” Gelb said. “Put a sixth-string quarterback in there; if that quarterback takes a vicious hit, someone on the offensive side of the ball, go punch someone on the defensive side of the ball and show some guts. Show some courage. Have a little pride when you step on the field to compete for your job.
“Never believe in this football team again,” Gelb continued. “That’s how bad they are. And we have to watch this crap for the next two, three months? This team is awful. They are miserable. They are brutal.”
The Cowboys, it seems, are back to square one, if that. Jason Garrett perennially underachieved in Dallas, but he did go 40-24 in his last four seasons with the Cowboys.
“You didn’t think it could get worse than Jason Garrett last year,” Gelb said of the Cowboys’ disappointing 8-8 finish. “It’s worse. I think a Dallas fan would take Jason Garrett back in a heartbeat – and they were never winning a Super Bowl with Jason Garrett. But Mike McCarthy, he’s already lost the locker room. How do you lose the locker room after seven games? Really, six games because he lost it last week. You got anonymous sources, players talking to the media, and this is the guy you gave a five-year contract to? Why? Because he told you, ‘Yeah, now I embrace analytics.’”
Gelb thinks McCarthy could be one-and-done in Dallas.
“If you’re Jerry Jones, you can’t even give McCarthy next year,” Gelb said. “You got to get rid of him at the end of this upcoming season, but is Jerry Jones going to pick the right guy? Over and over again he’ll make the aggressive move, the bold move, he’ll get a bunch of players to get you excited. But why should I trust Jerry Jones to pick the right head coach and get this thing eventually moving in the right direction? This division stinks. He may only need to win six games, and this roster can’t win six games? Shame on me for believing in them before the season. Shame on me. This is as bad as it gets for the Cowboys.”