In a game in which Dallas mostly looked completely out of touch with the rest of the NFL, the Cowboys were blessed with one final chance — another infamous blown lead by Kyle Shanahan? — with 3:05 to play trailing San Francisco by six points.
Four Dak Prescott incompletions later, the game was fundamentally over. And the Cowboys are fundamentally as done for 2024 as a 3-4 team can be following a 30-24 loss to a 49ers team every bit as wounded as Dallas.
Incompletions weren’t Dak’s biggest problem Sunday night in Santa Clara, Calif. I’m not sure his two interceptions that raised his season total to eight were his biggest problem, either, although if he’s going to inadvertently pursue the league lead he shared in 2022, that’s not great for a struggling Dallas team.
Dak’s biggest problem is he can’t run. On the morning of the season opener in Cleveland, the Cowboys signed Dak to the biggest contract in NFL history, a $60 million average per year price tag that will hold up for at least a few months and keep him in the top five most likely for years to come. But even if Jerry Jones paid him to be Dak The Immortal, Prescott has given the Cowboys Dak The Immobile.
Prescott used to make plays with his feet. Every quarterback needs to be able to do it in this league unless you’re blessed with the best offensive line and uncommonly good receivers. Even a year ago, Prescott still ran for 242 yards and was able to make the occasional escape from trouble to keep a drive alive.
Not anymore. Not in 2024.
While 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy was the game’s second-leading rusher with 56 yards Sunday night, Dak carried once for a 1-yard loss. On a big third down, he needed to make a short run and had the angle to beat Nick Bosa to the sideline but lost it in a heartbeat and had to throw the ball out of bounds. I don’t know if it’s those blue high-tops, but Dak just looks slower and incapable of making the quick decision to run in the pocket, and I’m far from the only one who has noticed this.
In that final set of downs in which Dak should have been intercepted on first down but continued to fire incompletions until he was out of plays, NBC’s Cris Collinsworth — rarely critical of the game’s featured players — said, “I tell you Dak just doesn’t move like he used to.’’
No one is suggesting Dak has to run like Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson or Washington’s rookie phenom Jayden Daniels. He never had those skills. But it would be nice for Dallas if he could still rank in the top 20 among quarterbacks in rushing.
Or top 30. Or top 35 maybe.
Dak entered this weekend 36th behind (among many, many others) the Jets’ Aaron Rodgers, the Colts’ Joe Flacco and the Panthers’ Andy Dalton.
Now you might be saying what’s all this talk about running? Dak was 25-for-38 for 243 yards passing Sunday. That’s mostly a reasonable total although not necessarily an efficient one in today’s game. But the two interceptions raising his season total to eight (he threw nine last season) are a real issue, given that Dallas hasn’t yet reached the halfway mark.
Quarterbacks have to be mobile, and perhaps Dak still is but has simply lost whatever internal clock one uses to decide when it’s time to escape the pocket and make a play. An offense that is the worst in running the football is always going to be limited, and that was obvious Sunday when CeeDee Lamb produced 146 of the Cowboys’ 292 yards rushing and receiving. If the 49ers had not lost track of Lamb twice in the fourth quarter, this would have looked like so many other recent Cowboys-49ers games.
Not pretty for the visitors.
At 3-4, this is a club that is more than just 2 1/2 games behind Washington and two behind Philadelphia. It’s a franchise that looks woefully out of step — paying Dak an enormous sum when, at 31, his best years may be behind him; completely ignoring the need for a running back last offseason; just looking ill-prepared at the worst times in games. The Cowboys had one trick that seemed to work in the embarrassing 47-9 loss to Detroit two weeks ago — a fake reverse on kickoffs — and so they trotted it out some more against the 49ers, finally letting KaVontae Turpin flip the ball to C.J. Goodwin. And he was penalized for an illegal forward pass. Just one of several complete breakdowns by John Fassel’s special teams Sunday.
A 49ers team missing last year’s offensive player of the year, Christian McCaffrey, and wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk lost running back Jordan Mason early Sunday and went down to No. 3 on the depth chart — rookie Isaac Guerendo of Louisville. Dallas could barely contain him as he led all rushers with 85 yards and San Francisco produced 469 total yards.
There wasn’t anything for Cowboys fans to like except for the inexplicable manner in which the 49ers let Dallas get close in the final quarter. But a game-winning drive wasn’t in the cards for Dak. Four incompletions and it was done. Another week of soul-searching is at hand. And if Dak can’t start running for his life occasionally, this will be a long, long season.
More from Cowboys-49ers
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