Owner and general manager Jerry Jones walked away from the home stadium of the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night with one overwhelming emotion.
“It’s very disappointing. I’m really obviously very disappointed for our fans,” Jones said of the Cowboys losing to the Minnesota Vikings and falling to 6-7-1 to be eliminated from wild-card playoff contention.
“I’m disappointed for these players. I didn’t expect that. I thought we could come out here and on both sides of the ball make a better accounting of ourselves. Minnesota did the best job out there on both sides of the ball.”
The Cowboys have a playoff prayer left, but they would have to finish the season with three consecutive wins while the Philadelphia Eagles lose their final three games to forfeit their lead in the NFC East.
Dallas plays the Los Angeles Chargers (10-4) on Sunday and faces the Washington Commanders (4-10) on Christmas Day in another short-week, Thursday game. The season finale is Jan. 4 against the New York Giants (2-12).
Philadelphia plays at Washington on Saturday night, at Buffalo (10-4) on Dec. 28 and faces the Commanders again in the Week 18 finale on Jan. 4.
Like Jones, first-year head coach Brian Schottenheimer also used the “d” word after a deflating loss to the Vikings (6-8) that dropped Dallas to 3-6-1 against NFC opponents this season.
“I’m disappointed,” Schottenheimer said. “We didn’t play well against Detroit (Week 14). I really do think … we’re beating ourselves quite a bit and that starts with us as a coaching staff. It’s always going to start with me and the things that I messed up and didn’t do very well. (Vikings DC) Brian Flores was better than me.”
Quarterback Dak Prescott said he was “definitely surprised” by Sunday’s loss because of what the Cowboys knew was at stake. He’s focused on being a consistent voice the rest of the season to bring professional accountability to the offense.
“Nothing’s going to change for me, and that’s going to be my influence as a leader,” Prescott said. “My message to anybody around me is take pride in who you are as a man and who you are as a football player and the job responsibility that you have and what that entails is giving your best every day. And if you don’t, you probably won’t be in this league for long.”
