ARLINGTON, Texas – With 2:47pm left on this first day of fall and the afternoon turning into early evening, this would be my guideline:

“Speechless in Arlington.”

The Cowboys were well on their way to a third straight beating here in the formerly friendly confines of AT&T Stadium. They were down by 22 points, coming off a 44-19 drubbing at the hands of a New Orleans Saints team that managed just one touchdown and 12 points, and that came at home, in a 15-12 loss to the Eagles on Sunday. And coming off a season-ending upset of a 48-32 playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers.

The Cowboys were on pace to give up 274 yards rushing to the previously winless Baltimore Ravens – 151 of them courtesy of running back Derrick Henry and another 87 courtesy of quarterback Lamar Jackson – knowing full well that that was exactly what Baltimore’s game plan would be. Run, run, run, as if the Ravens were some sort of latter-day Forrest Gump.

They were on pace, three games into the 2024 season, to give up a combined 72 points in back-to-back home games while opposing quarterbacks completed just 11 passes (Derek Carr) and 12 passes (Jackson). But that’s all those guys had to do, as their teams combined for 464 yards rushing over the last two games.

And with only so many minutes left in Game 3, the Cowboys had scored just one offensive touchdown in the last 175 minutes, 4 seconds of football, dating back to just 5:15 left in the second quarter of the 33-19 opening win over Cleveland.

Think about that. That’s just four minutes short of going almost three full games, 176 minutes, without scoring an offensive touchdown.

What was there really to say?

Hooray for kicker Brandon Aubrey, who came within three feet of tying Baltimore kicker Justin Tucker’s NFL record of 66 yards for the longest field goal in history with his franchise-long 65-yarder for half of the Cowboys’ points to that point. Those went along with his 52-yarder, extending his record to start a career by making 15 of 15 attempts from 50-plus yards.

But this is just a footnote, right?

Yet in those final 10 minutes and 41 seconds, the Cowboys turned words that couldn’t describe their performance into “congruence.” Their play was so inconsistent that head coach Mike McCarthy said with 2:36 left, “We had a chance.”

What are you saying? A chance? Are you kidding?

But you had to see it to believe it. Yes, the team was 1-1 after two games in 2024, which left me wondering Friday, “Who are these guys, anyway?” The ones we, along with maybe half of the 93,566 people here and a nearly national TV audience, were ready to bury three games into the 2024 season. But then the Cowboys pulled off a near-flawless resuscitation.

Incomprehensibly, and to make these conflicting assessments only more confusing, there the Cowboys stood, one stop on a third-and-6 at the Baltimore 25-yard line, having forced a punt to earn one final possession with a chance to tie or win the game they had been losing so badly for nearly 58 minutes.

Why, they had scored touchdowns on three straight possessions, thanks in part to recovering one of two onside kicks and making a three-and-out for just the second time in Baltimore’s 11 possessions. And they were about to make another three-and-out, holding Jackson to a four-yard gain on first down and picking off Herny for no gain on second down, Micah Parsons bowing out for one of his five tackles.

Timeout, Dallas. Plenty of time left. Get a stop. Force a punt. And still have the 2:00 warning to work with. Ravens field three wide receivers. Cowboys are in man-to-man coverage. You have to worry about Henry running right at them. You have to worry about Jackson staying. That’s what happens when the defense is this inept for nearly 50 minutes of a 60-minute game.

Instead, Baltimore, with three receivers lined up on the right side and Zay Flowers, who has only two catches in the game, rushes to the right as Jackson completes the pass a step ahead of Trevon Diggs, who is half an arm’s length away from breaking up Jackson’s nine-yard completion, just his 12^and of the game and Flowers’ longest of the day.

“Yeah, that was just (messy) on my part,” Diggs said, despite having to dig through two receivers’ traffic to his right. “I’ve got to make that play no matter what. … At the end of the day, whatever it is, I’ve still got to make that play. I’m supposed to show up when it’s time, so that’s my responsibility.”

That sealed the “incongruous” 28-25 loss, after a quarter of good was sprinkled over three quarters of completely unacceptable. That dropped the Cowboys to 1-2, below .500 for the first time since the 2022 season opener with that 19-3 loss to Tampa Bay, and just the third time since the 2021 season opener with another loss to Tampa Bay, this time 31-29. The Cowboys finished each of those three seasons with a 12-5 record, having won two of the three NFC East titles.

And only the second time in the last 54 regular season games to lose two games in a row?

The Cowboys continue to struggle to stop the run. They’ve now given up 456 yards rushing in the past two losses to the Saints’ 190, though the Eagles held them to just 89 in that 15-12 win, a mere 3.0 yards per carry. Gap control and setting the edges on the outside continue to be Dallas’ problems. Tackling has been poor. Recognition abysmal. The middle of the defensive front is soft.

“I think we have people right now who are just trying to be Superman,” Parsons says. “People just need jobs, bro. I don’t want to be Superman. We don’t need Supermans. We just need 11 guys playing together, and right now, it’s just not in harmony.”

And this has become a Baltimore thing, too. The Cowboys have now lost six of the seven times they’ve faced the Ravens. And this will be the fourth time the Ravens have run for 200-plus yards against the Cowboys: 250 in 2000, 265 in 2008, 294 in 2020 and now 274. That’s a combined 1,083 yards in four of those losses. That’s .62 miles for perspective

And when all that happens, it’s tough to put pressure on opposing quarterbacks. No sacks. One Parsons QB hit. Which is why Jackson was able to complete 12 of 15 passes for 182 yards. And when you combine Derek Carr’s 11 of 16 for 243 yards, that’s 23 of 31 for 425 yards, three touchdowns, one interception, and a whopping 134.81 QB rating.

Tough to win. Tough to play just one quarter of quality football. Tough to pressure an offense when the Cowboys offense has scored just one touchdown in nine straight quarters through the first three games of the season. It’s not going to happen. Not today. Not in two months from yesterday. And not in another 14 tomorrows.

And now we have just four days left to make improvements, but only one more full practice is needed before we take on the Giants on Thursday night, having at least expressed that hope about three quarters of a losing cause.

“I mean, for me it sucks,” Parsons summarized. “It’s a long year. I wish I never had to go through anything like this.”

But that’s a mouthful anyway.