Cowboys offense comes to life too late in 30-24 loss at 49ers, leaving Dallas with more questions

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The “comeback” for the Dallas Cowboys felt pretty empty.

The Dallas Cowboys came up just short in a battle of attrition at the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday night. In a game all about adjustments, toughness, physicality, and both teams finding a way without many of their star players, the final score tells the familiar story of the 49ers doing this at a much higher level than the Cowboys. This was a meeting of rivals that represented the NFC as the #1 and #2 seeds a year ago, with both having a lot of work to do to find anything close to that form, but desperate for a fourth win to hopefully get things going. For the first time in three meetings against the 49ers, the Cowboys had the lead at halftime, but still managed to trail by 17 going into the fourth quarter.

Kyle Shanahan’s team came out of the locker room inspired to take control of this game at home and save their season, sticking to what they do best and rattling off 17 straight points to put the Cowboys in a familiar trailing position. Unfortunately, the Cowboys could not match this desperation, and although their familiarity with being forced into being a one-dimensional drop back team led to two CeeDee Lamb touchdowns in the fourth quarter, the 49ers held on to win their fourth straight against the Cowboys, fourth game of this season, and hand Mike McCarthy’s team their fourth loss of 2024.

If the Cowboys’ 47-9 loss two weeks ago at home to the Lions was about being shown how far off the pace they are in being a playoff contender, this 30-24 loss at the 49ers off the bye may be the final reality check that any talks of making the playoffs are now a longshot around The Star. With so many coaches on expiring contracts and, as always, players set to hit free agency where Dallas is more comfortable losing contributing players than adding from other teams, the entire purpose of this season is now hanging in the balance. It was hanging in the balance for all four quarters against the most beatable 49ers team this Cowboys team has seen in some time, but far too many of the miscues that have plagued this team all year were still present enough to let the win slip away.

Simply being in the game won’t be good enough for the Cowboys to take many positives from this performance, as Mike Zimmer’s defense put up a valiant effort and showed some new looks with the extra time off but the offense did not.

It is the offensive side of the ball where the Cowboys have less injuries to notable players, the two highest paid players on the team in Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb, and a play caller that is also the head coach in McCarthy. Their second half performance showed the ceiling for this team is likely being in games against better teams at times, but winning them is a different ask entirely. This was the Cowboys’ first road loss of the season, having previous wins at the Browns, Steelers, and Giants. They will look to quickly turn this around with a visit to the Atlanta Falcons next week, before putting their 0-3 home record to the test again against two teams with winning records in the Eagles and Texans.

Before getting into any of that, or the latest noise that will surround a Cowboys team that settled into third in the NFC East on the same Sunday the Eagles dominated the Bengals and Commanders won on the last play of the game, here are a few notes on how this week eight primetime opportunity got away from them.

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• The Cowboys offense continues to make everything look so hard on themselves. For a team that put plenty of emphasis on the run game over the bye, continuing to play for third and manageable situations instead of being more aggressive on early downs is a head-scratching choice when the run game was left to Dalvin Cook in his team debut and Ezekiel Elliott against the 49ers. Rico Dowdle was made inactive upon arriving to the game with an illness. This shuffle in the backfield led to just a three yard increase in rushing yards from the Detroit loss, 56 yards compared to 53. It was the third time this season the Cowboys have rushed for less than 60 yards. Elliott was responsible for 34 of them on 10 carries and did score the team’s first touchdown.

For comparison, 49ers rookie third-string back Isaac Guerendo outgained the Cowboys on the ground himself with 85 yards on 14 carries and a touchdown, while Brock Purdy came close with 56 yards on eight scramble attempts - also adding a rushing score.

These are two teams that approached the game similarly from an offensive standpoint, wanting to give their QBs easy completions to mitigate the pass rush and negative plays, throw the ball over the middle of the field, and get something going in the run game. While these concepts came out of desperation for the Cowboys and haven’t been good enough to win all season, they are the bread-and-butter of what the 49ers do. San Francisco being able to finally settle into this game and pull ahead by simply executing what they do best is a tough look for the Cowboys if they have any hope of saving this season.

Even many of the Cowboys’ short passes and screens used in this game felt slow developing and laborious, unable to test the 49ers down field until it was much too late. Taking the ball first again proved to be a mistake McCarthy refuses to learn from, as the Cowboys threw a second-and-long screen pass to Lamb to set up a third and five, just to hand the ball to fullback Hunter Luepke and get stopped. The 49ers took over, and when faced with a third down of their own, got Deebo Samuel matched up with Eric Kendricks and won the mismatch for 47 yards. The drive would end in a 50-yard field goal, but it was the first sign on the night that the 49ers are a step ahead in getting their best players looks against defenders they can take advantage of on a much more consistent basis.

Although Dallas appeared somewhat ready to win this game as a low-scoring defensive slugfest and make this less of a factor, it mattered in the end, as the Cowboys could do nothing on offense to stop a third quarter avalanche from the home team. The 49ers played like a team that knows their expectations are still as close to Super Bowl or bust as possible even with their current injuries, while the Cowboys played their latest four quarters resembling anything but even a Wild Card team.

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When the Cowboys did attempt to test the 49ers deep, two such attempts came to KaVontae Turpin. The first immediately after the 49ers took the early lead was intercepted, and one much later in the fourth quarter was dropped on a crucial third down that helped seal Dallas’ faith in the loss. The team has known they’d be without Brandin Cooks for a while now, working his way back from a knee injury after last playing in week four, but continue to have few answers other than asking their punt/kick returner to be something he isn’t in the pass game. To put it lightly, there simply aren’t a lot of offenses for teams being taken seriously around the NFL right now that are throwing multiple go-balls to their punt returner in a game.

Now two losses removed from an emotional win at the Steelers, it feels like forever ago that Jalen Tolbert was able to provide this crucial element in McCarthy’s offense. Targeted nine times in the last two games after having the game-winning touchdown against Pittsburgh, Tolbert has caught seven of them for 87 yards, but has been little more than another stagnant target in this mostly lifeless offense that lacks an identity or big play ability.

• With the 49ers in possession with a chance to take a two-score lead early following Prescott’s first interception, the Cowboys defense used their new six-man defensive front look that became a story of the game. Zimmer deployed this look plenty to discourage the 49ers from running the ball between the tackles, and used it to both simulate and bring pressure against Purdy to help his banged up secondary. Jourdan Lewis made the most consistent plays in coverage all night for the Cowboys, forcing back-to-back incompletions when targeted to force the punt that led to the Cowboys’ first touchdown.

The 49ers found a way to not only block up these pressures but get more favorable matchups in the secondary by working George Kittle and Samuel against Eric Kendricks, Donovan Wilson, and Malik Hooker in the second half. Dallas’ only chance at this point was finding a pass rush that could consistently get to Purdy, but again without Micah Parsons or DeMarcus Lawrence had a difficult time doing so.

The 49ers did a good job staying in manageable downs and distances, even on third down, to make it much harder on the Cowboys to get these pressure plays they’ve executed the best on defense.

DeMarvion Overshown did have a TFL late in the first half to push the 49ers back following a huge catch and run to Kittle, which kept the 49ers off the scoreboard on a drive that could have been avoided if the Cowboys offense managed at least a few first downs on the previous possession. Instead, a positive gain of seven yards to Turpin on first down was followed up by hurried incompletions to Ferguson and Lamb for a punt.

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When he was pressured, Purdy was still able to get the ball to his checkdowns with precision and the accuracy to create run after the catch opportunities, yet another thing the 49ers did better than the Cowboys that made a difference in this game.

You have to give some credit to veteran defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer for staying the course with a defense down to so many second- and third-string players and at least trying new looks that gave the team a chance. One can also fairly question what it says about this Cowboys team that the defensive coordinator is yet again giving the team the best chance to win and having his guys more prepared than the offense that rests in the hands of the head coach. This was the case multiple times under Dan Quinn, and has carried over into Zimmer’s first year.

When it works and produces wins, everyone can be happy, but when a team with the highest-paid QB in the league is losing games with two interceptions, a turnover on downs, and four three-and-outs on this side of the ball, it has all the makings of a team unraveling which the Cowboys did in the blink of an eye to start the second half in Santa Clara.

The Cowboys averaged just shy of five yards a play on the night and went 4-12 on third down, while the 49ers’ big second half put them at over seven yards a play with a total of 469 to Dallas’ 292 on the night.

Against the Lions, the Cowboys offense went three and out twice followed by a four and out in the first half. The Lions scored 17 points off of these drives and put the game away early. Sunday night against the 49ers, it took until the second half for the Cowboys to go three and out twice and throw a third-down interception, but the 14 points scored by Shanahan’s offense in this sequence was the turning point of the game. This concerning trend by itself is more than enough to wash out any of the slight positive adjustments the Cowboys showed off their bye, as the game was there for the taking in the hands of players that have been at the forefront of every recent loss to the 49ers, but it still didn’t matter.

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The 49ers simply had much more left in the tank and within the comfort of their game plan to pull away from the Cowboys when it came down to decide which team was more desperate to get a fourth win. Unlike at the end of the first half where a big play from Kittle netted no points, the 49ers got another play for Kittle lined up against Wilson that gained 43 yards and set up a Gurrendo touchdown one play later to take the lead. Prescott’s second interception would come right after this, on the concerningly familiar low-percentage rollout play intended for Lamb on third down. The Cowboys may have went to the well one too many times on this play, as they did hit a similar throw on third down to Lamb in the first half on their touchdown drive. It was also yet another third down the Cowboys offense invited upon themselves with a second down screen to Lamb.

Seven plays later, a team had the first two-score lead of the game after Kittle scored a wide open touchdown to put the home team up 20-10, doing so on what was apparently national tight ends day. Kittle celebrated the holiday with a season high 128 yards and his fourth touchdown of the year. It was the type of separation on a pick play (at first called for offensive pass interference, but picked up) that Dallas receivers have only been able to dream about this year.

The mismatches continued as Samuel beat Amani Oruwariye to set up a Purdy sneak touchdown later in the third, and just like that the Cowboys went from up four to down 17 and reeling.

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The best the Cowboys could do in getting their play makers involved with too little too late of an effort was find Lamb for a mid-fourth quarter touchdown that gave the game some hope. This play showed some resemblance of creativity and scheming, as Lamb’s route was run to the same side where Prescott also had Jake Ferguson and Hunter Luepke as short to intermediate options. This traffic caused two 49ers defenders to run into each other, and the shot to Lamb was open for his first 100 yard game of the season. Lamb found the end zone not once but twice, something he hadn’t done since week four, but still wasn’t a consistent enough threat in a dull Cowboys passing attack to really establish the Dallas offense in this game.

Lamb being one of the leaders expected to step up in this role for the Cowboys this season after getting a contract extension, he’d surely trade a quiet game for a win anyway the Cowboys could have found it, instead left with a big game on paper but another loss - and one that again looks closer by the final margin than it really was for much of the evening.

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In the last three season, the Cowboys’ fourth loss of the year has not come until week 12, 15, and 15 again last year at the Bills. They just took their fourth loss and second in a row in week eight, with the only three teams that currently have a losing record remaining on their schedule not coming until the Giants on Thanksgiving, Bengals in week 15, and Panthers in week 15.

The Cowboys are now behind the 6-2 Commanders and 5-2 Eagles in the NFC East, while the 49ers are tied at 4-4 with the Cardinals and Seahawks, having lost to Arizona but beaten Seattle to sit at second in the current standings. One playoff team from a year ago did well to keep every goal in front of them on this 2024 season on Sunday night, while the other did not.