© Provided by The Big LeadDallas Cowboys v Baltimore Ravens | Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images
The Dallas Cowboys are 3-9 after a 17-point loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Tuesday night. They and their fans are just waiting for the season to end. Poor injury luck struck first when Dak Prescott went down for the year and never relented as key contributors on both sides of the ball went down. Ezekiel Elliott is playing like a man who has a contract worth $900,000 rather than $90 million. It really cannot get much worse than this.
Troy Aikman, longtime former QB for Dallas, has never quite been able to shake his Cowboys loyalty whenever he commentates on their games. So when he talks about the immediate future of the franchise and he sounds legitimately depressed about it, he probably is actually that sad and the immediate future is actually that dire.
The Cowboys' biggest problem this year came at quarterback. The hope is that Prescott comes back resembling something like his former self, but after the injury he suffered, hope is all we'll have until we see him on the field again. Even if that works out, the defense still has holes all over the place and the offensive line has fallen off sharply from even two years ago. Elliott's struggles have been well-documented. Mike McCarthy nearly had a mutiny on his hands in the opening weeks of the season and hasn't really given anybody much confidence that he can elevate this team to its peak, even if he's had his moments.
There is a lot to fix. The cap sheet is not going to get better anytime soon with Elliott, Amari Cooper, and DeMarcus Lawrence on huge deals with another Prescott deal of some type incoming. Aikman's tone seems appropriate for the state of the franchise. All is not lost, to be sure, but a lot of work has yet to be done and there is little reason to think that the Cowboys are competent enough to execute those changes smoothly.
Hey, at least the receivers are good!