Cowboys’ road to Super Bowl is harder to believe after ugly loss to Bills

National Football League

Published Dec. 17, 2023 8:49 p.m. ET

This is why it’s so hard for people to believe in the Dallas Cowboys.

It’s easy to want to believe. They really are loaded with talent. And the way they’ve played the last five weeks it was hard to not see them as one of the best teams in the NFL. Even the most reluctant bandwagon jumpers had to admit they were starting to look like a Super Bowl contender.

But what happened next is what always seems to happen with the Cowboys:

Just when you thought you were in, they push you back out.

They did that on Sunday with a stinker of a performance up in Buffalo, where they were manhandled by the Bills in a very ugly 31-10 loss. The Bills beat them handily on both sides of the ball. They started running right through the Dallas defense from the beginning and didn’t stop until they had a ridiculous 266 yards on the ground. Their defense made Dak Prescott look ordinary. The Cowboys self-destructed with penalties, too.

In other words, as Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said, “We did not play well.”

It was much more than that, though. It was also that they didn’t play well on the road. Again. In fact, they were completely out-classed, reminiscent of their disastrous, 42-10 loss in San Francisco way back on Oct. 8. But they can’t shrug off these games as anomalies anymore.

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The Cowboys are 3-4 on the road this season, with their wins coming against the lowly Giants (5-9), Panthers (2-12), and Chargers (5-9). Their losses include that early-season nightmare against the woeful Arizona Cardinals, which was bad enough. But now it includes losses to three Super Bowl contenders — at San Francisco, at Philadelphia and at Buffalo by an average score of 34-14.

That’s pretty significant, considering the Cowboys (10-4) are very unlikely to win the NFC East, thanks to the Eagles‘ soft remaining schedule. That means their road to the Super Bowl will almost certainly be entirely on the road, where they’ve consistently been at their worst.

“Honestly, it’s just unacceptable at this point,” said Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons. “There’s no excuse for it. It’s mind-boggling.”

McCarthy added: “It’s part of my message. There’s just too big of a gap in our road games. We’ve got to be much better on the road.”

None of this, though, should have been too surprising, because this is what the Cowboys do. Year after year, they build up expectations only to fail to meet them. They set their goals higher and higher, then they plant real seeds of doubt. This year it’s because of their road problems. Last year it was Prescott’s interceptions.

It’s always something. And it happens so often, to be honest, the letdown might even be the expectation now.

But this one felt different, because this was more than just another road loss. No one would’ve been surprised if the Cowboys had lost to a desperate and resurgent Bills team in Buffalo The Bills are legitimately good — far better than their now 8-6 record. This always figured to be quite a fight.

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Except it wasn’t a fight. It was a mauling. The Bills out-gained the Cowboys 351-195 — and keep in mind that 80 of those yards came on a garbage-time touchdown drive for Dallas. The Bills held the ball for more than 35 minutes because the Cowboys defense couldn’t do anything about that. Prescott (21 of 34 for 134 yards and an interception) didn’t have 100 yards passing until midway through the fourth quarter. His MVP train was completely derailed.

And James Cook, the Bills’ unheralded running back, morphed into an East Coast version of Christian McCaffrey against the Dallas defense, tearing them up for a career-high in rushing yards (179), carries (25) and total yards from scrimmage (227), plus two touchdowns (and very nearly a third).

Even before Cook went crazy, though, the Cowboys were playing like a team determined to find a way to self-destruct. The Bills scored on three of the four first-half drives, but all three could have been stopped short of the end zone. The Cowboys extended the first when defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence needlessly hit Bills quarterback Josh Allen (7 of 15, 94 yards, 1 touchdown) after he threw an incompletion on third-and-4 from the Dallas 6. The Cowboys extended the second when defensive end Sam Williams was called for roughing the kicker. And third got a boost when Cowboys safety Jayron Kearse hammered Bills receiver Khalil Shakir long enough after the ball got past him on an incompletion on second-and-19.

That’s probably not surprising either, since the Cowboys came into this game as the most penalized team in football. But it’s another reminder of how many ways they have to ruin it all.

There are excuses for the Cowboys, to be sure. They were playing without injured defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins and they lost All-Pro guard Zack Martin early in the game, which didn’t help in the battles in the trenches. They were also probably due for a bad week after their recent run of five straight wins in which they were averaging more than 40 points per game.

Or maybe that run was just the setup for the bait-and-switch that has been the hallmark of the Cowboys for nearly three decades running. They look good, sometimes great, and let the hype build around them. Their defense looks unbeatable. Their quarterback plays like an MVP.

Then, in the final chapter, it’s all revealed to be a house of cards.

The good news, of course, is that this isn’t the final chapter — yet. Also, the Cowboys have shown an ability to bounce back from bad losses, as they did after that San Francisco retreat when the world thought the Cowboys’ world was ending. They went on a tear from there, winning seven of their next eight games.

But is there anyone who is really convinced they can bounce back again, especially with a game at the Miami Dolphins (10-4) and another at home against the Detroit Lions (10-4) in the next two weeks?

Even if the faithful understandably lose faith, it still isn’t over for the Cowboys. Far from it. They are still as talented as they were a week ago. They’re still capable of making their long-awaited run to the Super Bowl. They’re even good enough to win big games on the road, even though they’ve yet to show it.

But this game was a reminder of how much can still go wrong for the Cowboys. And it was a reminder of why everyone always expects that it will.

Ralph Vacchiano is the NFC East reporter for FOX Sports, covering the Washington Commanders, Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants. He spent the previous six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.