
10 thoughts on the Cowboys 23-19 regular-season finale loss to the Commanders
The 2024 season is officially over for the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys hung on as long as they could, but in the end, they allowed the go-ahead touchdown to lose 23-19 to the Washington Commanders. There wasn’t a lot of excitement in this one as both teams deployed several reserves. Here are 10 thoughts on the Cowboys’ regular season loss to the Commanders.
1. DANCING LANCE
The time finally arrived for Trey Lance to get his chance and it went about as well as one might expect. There were times when he rolled out of the pocket and made some great throws downfield and then there were others when he wasn’t even pressured but still missed a wide-open receiver. He finished the game 20/34 for 244 yards and added another 26 yards on the ground.
2. PENALTIES NEVER SEEM TO GO AWAY
It wouldn’t be a Cowboys game without a slew of penalties. Entering Sunday, the Cowboys were the fourth-worst team in the league with 7.3 penalties per game. Against Washington, they committed 11 penalties. And it’s just the same song and dance. On Sunday, they kept getting flagged for false starts as five times they got caught moving early (Terence Steele, Tyler Guyton, Jake Ferguson twice, and Matt Waletzko). Who knows what is going on at the line of scrimmage for this to keep happening, but it’s so tiring.
3. PASS RUSH BRINGING THE HEAT
Right out of the gate, the Cowboys pass rush was fierce as Micah Parsons picked up two sacks with the first three plays of the game. They kept bringing the heat and finished with six sacks in the game collectively from Parsons (2.5), Chauncey Golston (1.5), Osa Odighizuwa (0.5) and Mazi Smith (0.5). It was great to see Golston and Odighizuwa have good games as this could be the last time we’ve seen both of them playing together in a Cowboys uniform.
4. RARE COMPANY FOR PARSONS
Micah is en fuego. Since returning from injury in Week 10, the Cowboys star pass rusher has racked up 11 sacks in just nine games. He finished the season with 12 total sacks and he joins Hall of Famer Reggie White as the only two players in NFL history who have had at least a dozen sacks in their first four years in the league. That’s a nice way to finish strong and further validate just how talented Parsons is.
5. ANOTHER RECORD FOR AUBREY
Last year as a rookie, Brandon Aubrey set the Cowboy’s single-season field goal record with 36 made field goals. Well, that record was short-lived as Aubrey broke his own record on Sunday. The Cowboys ace of a kicker went 4/4 on field goals with all of them being chip shots. What a luxury it is to have him on the team.
6. RED ZONE WOES CONTINUE
The bad thing about Aubrey kicking all these field goals is it means the Cowboys’ offense isn’t scoring touchdowns. It’s been an all-year thing for Dallas and nothing changed. Entering Sunday, the Cowboys have only converted in the red zone 50 % of the time. That is sixth-worst in the NFL. They should drop even further as they were only 1 for 6 in the red zone against the Commanders. Three times they got inside the 10-yard line, but only once did they score a touchdown. It’s puzzling why this continues to be an issue for this Cowboys football team.
7. CAREER-HIGH FOR TOLBERT
Every year feels like a rough year for the Cowboys breakout wide receiver who can never seem to break out. This year is by far his best as he finishes with over 600 yards receiving and seven touchdowns. And while he’s been relatively quiet this year with a couple of good games mixed in, he’s been relevant these last four weeks. He’s had a touchdown catch in each of the last three games and on Sunday he finished with 98 yards receiving, a new career-high.
8. A VAUGHN SIGHTING
Speaking of career highs, second-year running back Deuce Vaughn rushed six times for a career-high 37 yards. He had 6.2 yards per carry. Vaughn hadn’t touched the ball that many times since Week 4 of last year. With the recent release of Ezekiel Elliott, Vaughn became the team’s RB2, and although it was a small sampling, he looked pretty good.
9. GOOD PLAYS BY GOODWIN
C.J. Goodwin isn’t a player that people talk about all that much. He’s the team’s special team ace and nothing more, and this year he hasn’t been as splashy as years past. Over the last month, he’s quietly making more plays and on Sunday, he finally made a splash. Goodwin had a perfectly timed shoe-string tackle in punt coverage as well as falling on a muffed punt. It was a good showing from Goodwin and shows why the team keeps him on the roster.
10. ANOTHER 10-LOSS SEASON
Tom Landry coached the team for 30 years and he only had three seasons where he lost at least 10 games, twice early in his coaching career and once during his final year as the Cowboys coach before Jerry Jones fired him. Dave Campo went three-and-out with three straight 5-11 seasons back in the early 2000s. With Sunday’s loss, Mike McCarthy joins Landry and Campo as the only Cowboys coaches to have multiple 10-loss seasons.