Rich Agrees: The Cowboys’ TNF Loss at Home to the 0-4 Buccaneers Was Indeed “Embarrassing”

The last time the Dallas Cowboys lost to a team that walked in 0-4, Michael Irvin folded up his iPad and left a restaurant in London without paying his share of the bill.

That was October 6, 2019. Rich was at dinner with Mooch, Kurt Warner, Irvin and a table full of friends, following the Jets and Cowboys on the ESPN app a few plays ahead of Irvin's feed. Rich knew Sam Darnold had just hit Robby Anderson for a 92-yard touchdown. He watched Irvin watch it. Then Irvin was gone. "To this day, he has still not paid his part of the bill," Rich said.

The home version of that loss goes back even further. Rich took the show's sports DeLorean to October 19, 1975, when Bart Starr brought a winless Green Bay team into Texas Stadium and John Hadl threw a fourth-quarter touchdown. That was the last time Dallas lost at home to a team that entered 0-4 or worse. Until Thursday night.

The man who ended that streak was Jalon Daniels, six years at Kansas, undrafted, and now the first undrafted rookie starting quarterback to win a game for a winless team in the Super Bowl era. Rich has been one of the loudest Cowboys believers since the spring, pointing to a loaded offense and a defense that added real talent. He kept the faith after the opener and kept it again after Rio. Not anymore. "I have, again, two new words in regards to what I'm feeling about the Dallas Cowboys this year," he said. "I'm out."

The numbers explain why. Bucky Irving, who had not posted a 100-yard game since his rookie season, ran for 165 of Tampa Bay's 241 rushing yards. Even when Todd Bowles passed on a short field goal that would have put the Bucs up three scores, and Dallas clawed back, the finish was pure Cowboys at home. A two-point try to tie, a ball that popped up off Jake Ferguson, an interception. Then, with Dallas selling out to stop the run, Irving broke one nearly the length of the field anyway. "It's nuts how talented they are and how poor the execution and results are," Rich said.

He also could not understand the offensive plan against Bowles. "How do you not have a pressure plan to be successful against the most blitz-happy guy in the National Football League?" That is a Kurt Warner staple on the show, and Rich noted the plan did work at times, with Ferguson wide open in the third quarter and Dak Prescott missing him. On off nights for Dak and the line, though, the defense has to pick them up. It didn't.

Jerry Jones said he was "extraordinarily disappointed" and said what bothered him most was Tampa Bay running between the tackles, "where we have a lot of strength." Asked by Jane Slater whether a play-caller change was on the table, Jones said he did not want to be accused of being premature.

Brian Schottenheimer faced questions about defensive coordinator Christian Parker, and Rich was careful about where he aimed. He is not an ageist, he said, having landed at SportsCenter at 26, and he pointed to Sean McVay's longevity as proof that youth can help. But Parker, 34 and the youngest defensive coordinator in franchise history, has never done the job before, and "the results are dreadful." Schottenheimer said he would watch the tape before calling it square one, adding that "you certainly can't give up 242 rushing yards."

Then there was the moment caught in the tunnel, when a third-party contracted worker told Dak the loss was embarrassing. Dak said he simply wished the person had said it to his face. Schottenheimer called it "motivating." Rich split the difference: it was disrespectful, but it also gave voice to what everyone's "non-lying eyes saw."

TJ, a Cowboys fan, did not need the worker's help. He said he had warned that adding Joey Porter Jr. did not address the biggest need and that Dallas should have gone all in on Maxx Crosby. His verdict on Thursday was simple. "It is embarrassing."

Dallas sits at 2-3 with stand-alone games at Green Bay and at Philadelphia up next, which Rich expects will mean "a lot of cutaway shots to Jerry Jones if it doesn't go well."