Micah Parsons Puts Blame on Cowboys Roster for Loss to Ravens, Sends Strong Message on Dak Prescott

The Dallas Cowboys almost had it in the bag – until the final drive took away any chances they had to win their first international game in 12 years. Head coach Brian Schottenheimer graded his coaching an “F” and took all the blame himself. Franchise quarterback Dak Prescott and the defense tried to shoulder the blame as well. But former Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons pointed out two things that really handed the Baltimore Ravens a 34-31 win last week.

On The Edge with Micah Parsons, the Green Bay Packers star was asked how the locker room would respond to the coaching miscues and clock management after that loss. Parsons took the blame away from Schottenheimer and placed it squarely on the roster.

“Honestly, coaches don’t have too much power,” Parsons said. “Like, at the end of the day, us players have to take over the game plan, and we have to trust our abilities out there and – the reason why we’re on the field is our coach trusts us that we’re going to be in the right situations at the right time. At the end of the day, with how much time they had on the clock, as long as the – let’s not get this wrong because there’s a series that led up to that event, which people like to skip too much.

“The false start killed the drive. You cannot have false starts in the resume. That’s not coaching. That’s player discipline. It kills you. You can’t go from the first and goal to now it’s first and eight. It’s hard to get 10 yards in the NFL, especially in the red zone where everything’s tight and condensed because you don’t have to respect too many routes. You’re not backing up; you’re not just feeding to the end zone. … Feed at the goal line. So that hurts. Then it’s just the plays after that.”

In a game of seconds, trailing by three points, Dak Prescott fired a pass to CeeDee Lamb in the end zone, but a pass interference from cornerback Nate Wiggins took the chance of taking the lead away from Dallas. Regardless, that PI flag landed them a 1st & Goal from Baltimore’s 2-yard line. With 23 seconds on the clock, Dak tried to get the ball to George Pickens, but it fell incomplete. Then, everything went sideways.

On 2nd & Goal, Dallas tight end Luke Schoonmaker drew a false start flag, pushing his team back 5 yards to Baltimore’s 7. Prescott scrambled for a two-yard gain on the next play, but something had changed within the offense. Dallas took a timeout with 14 seconds in regulation, and this is where Schottenheimer noted that he’d “overcoached” Prescott. Coming back from the timeout, Dak looked too worried about ball protection to make a big play, and his short right pass to Pickens fell incomplete. Brandon Aubrey came in to kick a game-tying field goal – but that tie lasted just 7 seconds.

Back on the podcast, the host pointed to the timeout that surprised everyone – a step back when the Dallas offense should’ve been focused on getting a touchdown to seal the game and run out the clock at the same time. Micah Parsons agreed.

“Yeah, that was big, too,” Parsons said. “But it’s like, 11 seconds on the clock and it’s third down. You have your timer. Just take your looks. I don’t think that was so urgently – and then you leave them seven seconds. That part was a little bit of bad management, but at the same time, on a drop-back pass, you have a chance to win the game with 10 seconds. It’s not like you were running for your life or you just had to get rid of it like there was pressure. I didn’t understand the waste down in that situation.”

Prescott, for one, admitted that he was throwing the ball away instead of being patient and reading the field – a mistake that cost them the game, especially since Pickens was open but Dallas wanted to get the field goal instead.

“I probably should have just sat on it a little bit longer,” Prescott said. “Sank on my back foot and just put it on that front pylon. Definitely should have.”

Even Brian Schottenheimer admitted he “should have been better on third down with Dak.” Ideally, even if Dak couldn’t score a touchdown, he could’ve run out the clock given the fact that Aubrey could’ve made that field goal with his eyes closed. Sending the game to overtime might have given them another touchdown, but that what-if is little comfort to the Cowboys Nation at this point. Still, Micah Parsons believes this could be a learning opportunity for both Prescott and Schottenheimer.

“I don’t get mad at losses because losses is learning points,” Parsons said. “Dak’s going to get better from that. Brian Schottenheimer’s going to get learned from that. Experienced coach coming to second year, maybe a bad decision or over-coaching point, and a hostile environment…but it’s probably not a mistake that neither of them’s going to make again. Especially, it’s early in the year. Those types of losses don’t hurt you, especially because it’s not really a divisional matchup.”

Now, the 1-2 Cowboys travel to Houston to take on the 0-3 Texans. A home game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and a visit to play Micah Parsons’ Packers loom next on their schedule. We’re only three weeks in, and there’s plenty of time to rebound from this setback. The coming weeks will tell us whether Schottenheimer gives more freedom to Dak Prescott to operate this offense and get better at clock management. If not, Dallas might be in for a rough ride.

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